York Minster

York Minster kept most of its medieval stained glass through the Reformation and the Civil War, a rare survival in Europe, and the building is best understood as a stone frame for it. There has been a church here since 627, when a hurried wooden chapel was put up to baptise King Edwin of Northumbria, but the present minster was built in stages between 1220 and 1472, which is why its parts belong to three phases of English Gothic: Early English transepts, a Decorated nave and chapter house, and a Perpendicular east end and central tower. Beneath it all lies an undercroft with Norman fabric of around 1160, and the site overlaps the headquarters of the Roman fortress on which the city grew.

Three windows define a visit. The Great East Window, commissioned from the glass painter John Thornton in 1405, depicts the end of the world and the Last Judgment and is the largest expanse of medieval glass in the world; its 311 panels were taken out, conserved and reinstalled in a project that ran from 2008 to 2018. In the north transept the Five Sisters are five lancets over 16 metres tall filled with pale grey grisaille glass, a completely different aesthetic. At the west end of the nave, the widest Gothic nave in England, the Great West Window is known as the Heart of Yorkshire.

Between the nave and the choir stands the 15th-century screen with statues of the English kings from William the Conqueror to Henry VI. The chapter house, finished before 1296, has a painted ceiling and a ring of stained glass above its canopied seats. The building has also survived more than its share of fires: an arsonist in 1829, an accident in 1840, and a fire in 1984 that destroyed the south transept roof. The new roof bosses there were designed by children, winners of a competition run by the BBC's Blue Peter.

For the view, the central tower can be climbed: 275 steps on a narrow spiral stair to the highest point in York, with the medieval walls, the rivers Ouse and Foss and, on a clear day, the Kilburn White Horse on the edge of the North York Moors. Climbers must be at least eight, and there is no step-free access.

Getting there

The minster is inside the medieval walls of York, about 0.5 km from the city centre, and roughly a ten-minute walk from York railway station. There is no parking at the minster itself; the city has several Park and Ride sites and pay-and-display car parks nearby. The nearest airport is Leeds Bradford (LBA), about 40 km away.