Grotesque

Passing by York Minster stonemasons yard today I noticed this newly carved handsome chap. Figures of this type are known as Grotesques, I think he is destined for the east end of the building which is undergoing a major refurbishment. 

Minster Piazza

Know what surprised me when I reviewed this picture? Just how many people are wandering along the street chatting and looking where they are going! Sometimes when I walk along here I have to dodge around people just standing and staring up at York Minster. When I cycle along here............. well sometimes it is just easier to get off and walk!
See more people on streets around the world here

Auditions

Two entries for the price of one today. This impressive red gate is the entrance to York Minster Stone Yard. It is next door to the Minster choir school hence the notice for chorister audition day for those children wishing to enter York Minster choir.
For more entrances see CDP theme day

York Minster Piazza

The Emperor Constantine surveys the recently completed and nearly empty Piazza outside the south transept of York Minster. Just imagine, York with a Piazza!

The Eagle Lectern

The base of the lectern in the choir of York Minster. It was presented to the Minster in 1686 and features a great eagle which holds the bible up on its wings.

Strike!

This beautifully decorated clock is sited in the north transept of York Minster and was built in 1749 by local clockmaker Henry Hindley who had workshops in Petergate and later Stonegate. The two oak figures known as Gog and Magog are older than the clock (approx 400 years old) and they strike the chimes with their pikestaffs every quarter hour. The chimes can be heard throughout the Minster.

W is for Wax Candles

These votive lights are burning in front of a side chapel inside York Minster. It was the drop of wax rather than the flames that caught my attention.
Taking part in ABC Wednesday

Skyline

St Winifreds church spire and the west front of York Minster dominate this sunny skyline.

Creative Artisan from the Past

Sometimes artists cannot resist painting themselves into a picture. This carving outside the west end of York Minster suggests that perhaps stone masons sometimes succumb to the same temptation. This gentleman could be anywhere between 200-700 years old.
Taking part in CDP theme day

N is for Not Quite Finished Yet

As work continues on the 5 year restoration of the great East Window of the Minster much of the stonework is also being replaced. The Stonemasons have set up shop (well lodge actually) close to the window and their tools and materials are a source of interest to most passers-by, even when they are not working. The little Bichon out for a walk seems much more interested in what I am doing however! 
Taking part in ABC Wednesday

The Emperor's New Piazza

Work is progressing on the new Piazza at the south entrance to York Minster. Constantine has been boxed safely away for the last few months but appears to be allowed out to keep an eye on things again this week.

Keys of Heaven

York Minster is also known as St Peter's, its full name being the 'Cathedral and Metropolitical Church of St Peter in York'.  The keys of St Peter can easily be found within the Minster as here on an entrance gate to a private chapel.
Keys can also be found all around the city, the pub opposite the Minster is what else but the Crossed Keys. An area of the mediaeval city was known as The Liberty of St Peter and governed by the Dean & Chapter rather than the Lord Mayor. Many buildings still have keys carved or painted on them if you look carefully.

Benchmarking

This is the cap of a tube set in the floor of the Nave of York Minster as a level mark to show if the building is shifting. It was placed here after extensive restoration work to find out if it had been successful in halting the subsidence that threatened the fabric of the Minster. 
Benchmarking is a variation on the geocaching phenomenon in which individuals actively seek out these marks using a hand held GPS and log their finds on line. Who knew? Not me until I looked up from taking this picture to be congratulated by a couple of young lads on finding a 'passive station bolt'

Blindfold

There are over 100 of these carved figures and faces looking out from the Chapter House walls, women, men, animals both real and imagined. Of all of them the man with the blindfold is the one I always seek out. Why is he wearing it and how did the mason manage to make cold hard stone look so like a piece of cloth?

Where to Look?

It can be difficult to know where to look first in York Minster Chapter House. Do you enjoy the stained glass windows, admire the intricately tiled floor (here), photograph that fabulous Gothic domed roof (here)? Maybe you have come in specially to see the pictures currently on show, an exhibition call Liminal Space by Rachael Burnett. Or maybe to see the carvings done by the Master masons between 1270-80 that adorn the walls. For me it is the carvings, come by tomorrow to see one of my favourites.

Mediaeval Nanoparticles

In somewhere that is so closely associated with the past it can be difficult to draw attention to the 21st century city. There are 60 colourful and informative pictures around York at present. They are part of York Science & Innovation Grand Tour celebrating the City's achievements in this area.
Nanotechnology emerged in the 1980s and the University of York has a state of the art facility to explore this fascinating area. This picture of a single atom is on a wall opposite the Minster, and in a clever link to the Minster itself notes that silver and gold nanoparticles have been found in the Minster's mediaeval stained glass windows.

Minster Mosaic

This is a portion of the centre of the beautiful Minton tiled floor in York Minster Chapter House. The tiling dates from around 1845 with the blue tile showing crossed keys as York Minster is dedicated to St Peter.
More yellow posts here at 

Portable Font

York Minster has two fonts, one is a huge old stone affair but the other is this rather fine modern wood and metal portable font. Font is derived from the Latin fons meaning spring of water. Usually this is parked up in a quiet corner of the Minster and covered with a lid bearing the words We are little fishes in Christ our great fish.
Around Easter time it is filled with water and pressed into service. I came across it stood in the Nave next to a floral and candle display. The greenery is a sprig of Rosemary.

Minster Library

I visited the Minster Library recently which is situated in the old Archbishops Palace. It houses the Minster's collection of printed works the earliest of which are pre 1501. Much of the material is theological in nature but it also has early music scripts, herbals, and a series of fascinating letters from the Venetian ambassador to the UK.
 Four years at the court of Henry VIII: selection of despatches written by the Venetian ambassador, Sebastian Giustiniani and addressed to the signory of Venice, January 12th 1515, to July 26th 1519.
They are translated into English and are full of gossip, observation and speculation about all affairs that may affect the interests of the Venetian republic. The ambassador, clearly a born diplomat notes at one stage 'I spoke him very fair, using many very bland expressions, as I always endeavour to do, telling him I would write to your Sublimity, who I imagined would form a deliberate decision as inspired by the Almighty..........'

Super Woman!

There are so many memorial in York Minster it is easy to walk past without really paying attention, especially if they have a Latin inscription. Something about those sad looking cherubs prompted me to investigate this one further......


This memorial is to Jane Hodson wife to Phineas Hodson Chancellor of York from 1611-46. She died in childbirth in 1636 at the age of 38 having apparently given birth to no fewer than 24 children(!). Of these 14 (none of whom were twins) were baptized at a nearby church (which leads me to wonder if that 2 should be a 1). Either way she had a sizable family and survived a remarkable number of deliveries in a time when childbirth was a considerable risk to life, as evidenced by her untimely demise.


Her husband was devastated by her loss as a translation of a portion of the memorial shows

"...........  a woman born to be an exempelar and leader of her sex, by universal acclaim a signal ornament of the entire world; the delight and joy of her husband..........
After she had increased the lineage of her husband by bearing twenty-four children of both sexes she surrendered at last to the bitterness of death, albeit with the resolute valour of a soldier at his post, and retaining her beauty so that you would have said she was still a maiden who was so often a mother......"

Her husband is described as a very active Chancellor, a sentiment I suspect his remarkable wife would endorse.

Taking part in Taphophile Tragics