Cathedral Church Of St Peter, York Minster

York Minster, the Cathedral Church of St Peter, stands as one of England's finest medieval cathedrals, representing the culmination of three centuries of continuous building and craftsmanship. The present structure developed through distinct phases: the transepts from 1220 to 1255, the aisled nave from 1291 to 1360, and the Chapter House from 1275 to 1290. The Lady Chapel followed between 1361 and 1371, the choir with its integral transepts from about 1380 to 1418, and the east end from 1360 to about 1408. The Zouche Chapel and vestry date to the late 14th century. The west front and towers were constructed from about 1290 to about 1470, the crossing tower from 1410 to 1470, the library from 1418 to 1420, and the choir screen about 1460. The cathedral was rededicated on 3 July 1472.

The building has undergone several significant restorations and rebuildings. Lord Burlington designed new floor paving installed between 1730 and 1736. John Carr renewed the Chapter House vault in plaster in 1798. William Shout undertook restoration from 1802 to 1828. A fire in 1829 necessitated rebuilding the choir roof between 1829 and 1832 by Sir Robert Smirke. Another fire in 1840 led to the nave roof being rebuilt from 1840 to 1844 by Sydney Smirke. George Edmund Street restored the south transept in 1871. George Frederick Bodley added flying buttresses to the nave in 1905 to 1907. Bernard Fielden directed extensive restoration from 1966 to 1972. Following a fire in 1984, the south transept roof was rebuilt between 1984 and 1988.

The cathedral is built of oolitic limestone ashlar from Tadcaster with lead roofs and wood and plaster vaults. The Chapter House has an octagonal pyramidal roof. The building exemplifies Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular architectural styles. The plan comprises an aisled nave with western towers, a crossing tower with aisled transepts, the Chapter House to the north and former library to the south. The eastern arm consists of an aisled choir and Lady Chapel with integral transepts, with the Zouche Chapel and vestry to the south of the choir.

Exterior

The west end is flanked by four-stage buttressed towers encircled by tiers of gabled niches. The west door occupies the centre within a single-arched doorway with a gable hood, flanked by three rows of niches, some containing restored statuary from 1802 to 1816. The west window comprises eight lights with elaborate flowing tracery in the head and a gable hood rising into the nave gable. Both gables are filled with blind tracery. The nave gable is capped by a parapet of pierced stepped battlements with a central openwork pinnacle.

The towers feature traceried double doors in arched doorways of five orders of filleted shafts with foliate capitals and octagonal bases. Above are three-light windows with geometrical tracery and gable hoods to the second stage, and to the third stage four-light reticulated windows over rows of niches. The bell openings are of three lights with perpendicular tracery and ogee hoods. The tower parapets have pierced battlements with corner and intermediate pinnacles.

The nave aisles are divided into six bays by deep buttresses with gargoyles and crocketed pinnacles, each bay containing a three-light window. The clerestories have seven five-light windows separated by flying buttresses. All windows have geometrical tracery. The nave is capped with a blind traceried parapet, the clerestory with a parapet of pierced battlements with finials.

The north transept front, flanked by buttresses, has blind arcading below five tall lancets and five smaller ascending lancets in the gable. To the west are two small aisle lancets and, at the north-west corner, a buttressed octagonal staircase turret with slit windows and plain parapet. The east and west fronts have arcaded lancet windows. In the east front stands a cusped doorway with colonnette jamb shafts with stiffleaf capitals. The windows are arcaded beneath hoodmoulds enriched with dogtooth mouldings.

At the north-east corner, an L-shaped vestibule with loft leads to the octagonal Chapter House. The vestibule buttresses rise into detached pinnacles, their upper parts tied back with open traceried flyers. Chapter House buttresses rise to cruciform gableted pinnacles with crockets and finials, tied with flyers at two levels, one blind traceried, the other raking. Windows are of two or five lights with geometrical tracery, deeply set in the wall thicknesses. The masons' loft over the vestibule has square-headed two-light windows.

The south transept front and aisles are flanked by buttressed octagonal turrets with tapered roofs and crocket finials. A shallow vaulted porch in the centre has a restored traceried door in an arched doorway with filleted shafts and stiffleaf capitals. The inner door arch has continuous stiffleaf mouldings, the outer dogtooth enrichment. Above is a triple gable hood with trefoiled arches and dogtooth mouldings. Above again are three lancets and in the gable a rose window of concentric circles of arches with a central sexfoiled circle. The aisles have blind arcading below paired lancets, with further pairs of lancets above.

At the south-west corner stands the former library of two storeys and four bays. Two-light windows are square-headed with iron glazing bars and hoodmoulds. Two openings contain shallow two-centred arched doorways with 19th-century nail studded doors.

The crossing has a single stage lantern tower with thin angle buttresses and a pierced embattled parapet. Each face has two three-light windows with perpendicular tracery and ogee hoods, flanked by tiered niches.

In the eastern arm, the transepts have buttresses rising into crocketed pinnacles and four-tiered windows of five panel traceried lights beneath hoodmoulds on head stops. The aisles have three-light perpendicular windows—three to the west, four to the east—with crocketed hoodmoulds, separated by buttresses with crocketed pinnacles and gargoyles. The clerestory has four windows on each side of the transept, three of five lights each, one of four lights, all with panel tracery. Those to the west have plain hoods; to the east, arcaded external screens of three cusped lights or paired lancets with transoms. The bays are defined by pilaster buttresses rising to crocket pinnacles with finials. The aisle has a blind traceried parapet, the clerestory and transepts a pierced embattled parapet.

The aisled east end is flanked by buttresses encrusted with gabled niches and crocketed spirelets. The east window comprises nine lights with perpendicular tracery in the head beneath a tall ogee hood rising above the gable end. The aisle end windows are of three panel traceried lights with crocketed ogee hoods. Over all three windows are bands or tiers of niches and above, an open arcaded gabled parapet with crocket finials.

Interior

The six-bay aisled choir and three-bay Lady Chapel both have triforium and clerestory, the aisles incorporating quasi-transepts. The arcades of moulded arches are carried on compound piers of multiple columns with leaf capitals. The triforium is galleried, of arcaded and transomed cinquefoiled lights with blind panelled parapet at the base. Clerestory windows are set in arches of two orders. Full height shafts carry the vaults, the capitals to the choir shafts being sculpted figures, those to the Lady Chapel shafts canopies.

Below the windows, the aisles are arcaded in moulded square-headed surrounds, in pairs and triplets of blind trefoil headed panels on colonnettes with moulded capitals. Windows are arched in three orders of shafts with foliate capitals and flanked by tiers of canopied niches. Aisle vaults are quadripartite and carried on slim colonnettes with foliate capitals. The east window is flanked by tiers of canopied niches and the lower two rows of the window are screened by an arcaded stone gallery.

Screens at the west end of the aisles are shallow four-centred arches with traceried spandrels, each flanked on one side by tiered arches with 19th-century sculpture. 18th-century wrought-iron gates have leaf trail overthrows. The choir screen has an ogee-gabled central porch and doorway. On each side are vaulted niches containing sculpted figures of kings of England from William I to Henry VI (a 19th-century replacement) beneath elaborately pinnacled and crocketed canopies. Above are stucco angels. A round-arched doorway is closed by early 18th-century wrought-iron gates with a radiating tympanum entwined with leaf trails. The panelled porch within is fan vaulted.

The transepts are of three aisled bays, the aisles blind arcaded beneath the windows. The arcade piers are compound, of alternately filleted shafts with waterhold bases and stiffleaf capitals, those in the north transept with animals. The arches are moulded two-centred arches of three orders with dogtooth enrichment. The galleried triforium comprises twinned pairs of lancets, each pair beneath a pointed sub-arch with a pierced quatrefoil in the head, both pairs within an outer round arch with a pierced cinquefoil in the head. Wrought-iron gates to St Nicholas Chapel in the north transept are 18th century. The King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry Chapel has a re-used late 17th-century entrance screen with enclosing grilles of 1925.

The Chapter House portal consists of two cusped pointed arches beneath tiers of super arches and gables with a central mullion and tympana pierced by encircled quatrefoils and a cinquefoil with leaf cusps. Pierced panel traceried screens close the doorway. Tunnel-vaulted roofs are carried on shafts rising from foliate corbels.

The crossing is arcaded below a lantern of paired arched lights beneath crocketed ogee hoods. The wood vault dates from about 1470.

The eight-bay aisled nave has a galleried triforium and clerestory. The nave arcades are carried on compound piers of shafts, most with naturalistic leaf capitals, the minor ones with figure capitals. The triforium of arcaded trefoil headed lights is combined with the clerestory within a one-order arch.

The aisle walls and west end are lined beneath the windows with blind arcaded trefoil headed panels beneath crocketed gable hoods with pinnacles. Windows are arched in two roll-moulded and filleted orders with leaf capitals and flanked by blind traceried panels in crocketed gable hoods with figure stops. A doorway in the north aisle has an overdoor beneath a gabled hood depicting the Virgin beneath a canopy flanked by censing angels. Over the west doors are sculpted groups of figures.

The walls of the Chapter House vestibule are lined with blind arcades of twin cusped lights in two-centred arches on shafts with foliate capitals, some incorporating figures or animals. Blind cinquefoil tracery in the arch heads has central bosses. Quadripartite stone vaults have leaf bosses. Over the door to the Chapter House is a restored statue of the Virgin beneath a canopy. The 13th-century doors retain original scrolled ironwork.

The Chapter House is lined with niche seats beneath octagonal canopies, the rear supported on Purbeck marble shafts, the fronts pendant on leaf balls. Above are gablets with tiny head stops, and above the gables a frieze of naturalistic foliage. Over the door, empty niches originally contained statues of Christ and the Apostles. The ceiling has painted plaster vaulting.

Arch spandrels to the choir, Lady Chapel, both choir aisles, nave arcade, and arches beneath the crossing are filled with the heraldry of benefactors.

Fittings

The cathedral contains two 13th-century cope chests with fine wrought-iron scrollwork, a brass eagle lectern from 1686, Gothic choir stalls by Sir Robert Smirke made after 1829, and an organ of 1832 by Elliot and Hill. The Lady Chapel triptych reredos of carved stone was created by George Frederick Bodley in 1905. Ninian Comper designed the pulpit in 1948.

Stained Glass

York Minster houses a wealth of medieval and later glass. The nave clerestory contains much re-used 12th-century glass. The Five Sisters windows of about 1250 fill the north transept. The Chapter House has seven late 13th-century windows restored by John Barnet and Son about 1840. Various early 14th-century windows appear in the north nave aisle. The Great West Window dates from about 1339. John Thornton created the Great East Window from 1405 to 1408. Further early 15th-century windows appear in the choir, including the St William window in the north transept of about 1423 and the St Cuthbert window in the south transept of about 1440, probably also by Thornton. The Rose Window in the south transept is early 16th century. Important 17th-century English and French glass is present, along with late 18th-century painted glass by William Peckitt to designs by Biagio Rebecca. 19th-century glass includes windows by Kempe and Company in the transepts.

Monuments

The cathedral contains important medieval tombs including those of Archbishop Walter de Grey who died in 1255, the mutilated tomb of Archbishop Bowet from 1313 to 1315, Archbishop Greenfield who died in 1315, and an alabaster effigy of Prince William of Hatfield who died in 1346. Archbishop Savage who died in 1507 is also commemorated.

A good series of Jacobean style tombs includes those to Matthew Hutton who died in 1600, a rare painted wall monument to Edward Bunney who died in 1618, Sir William Gee who died in 1611, Sir Henry Belsaye who died in 1624, Frances Matthew who died in 1629, and Accepted Frewn who died in 1664.

A fine series of late 17th and 18th-century monuments includes those to Archbishop Richard Sterne by Grinling Gibbons, Archbishop Dolben who died in 1686, Archbishop Lamplugh who died in 1691 also by Gibbons, William Wentworth, 2nd Earl of Strafford who died in 1691 and his wife by Jan Van Nost, John Sharp who died in 1713 by Francis Bird, Thomas Watson-Wentworth who died in 1723 and his wife by William Kent, and Sir George Savile by J Fisher in 1789.

Various 19th and 20th-century monuments include an unusual brass Gothic Revival monument to William Mason and John Dixon by Frederick A Skidmore in 1862, a Crimean War memorial to the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry of 1903 by George Frederick Bodley, and a First World War memorial to the 6th Battalion of the King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry of 1921 by Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale.