Three interesting things about York Minster

(I almost called this “You won’t believe what they found under York Minster.”)

Minster is Old English/Anglo-Saxon term, used for an important church, and cathedral is a new-fangled term the base for an archbishop. A church can be either or, as with York Minster, both. It’s been built, (partially) destroyed and rebuilt many times since the 8th century, so I’m not going into that. (If you’re interested.) Instead, just three interesting things:

Interesting thing 1: The Minster is inhabited by teeny, tiny people. (Some are so small you might need to click on a picture to get a bigger version so you can see them.)

Western end of the nave (central entrance)

A screen of kings separate the nave from the choir

The only royal burial/memorial is William, second son of Edward III, who was born 1337 and died a few weeks later

One of the elaborate tombs (Sir Henry & Lady Ursula Belasyse, 17th C)

Interesting thing 2: The Crypt

From a nearby panel: The Doomstone survives from the first Norman Minster. It shows the “mouth of Hell” – a gruesome scene of lost souls slowly pushing into a boiling cauldron by devils and demons. At the top left you can see a man carrying two bags of money, showing the sign o greed. To his right is a woman showing the sin of lust. . . . It is thought that this formed part of a much larger image on the west front of the 12th century Minster.

Interesting thing 3: As previously noted, the city of York is built on the site of a Roman fortess.

This image from the Yorkshire Museum shows the location of the fortress in red, and there in the middle of the fortress site is the Minster. A few years back, they needed to do emergency work on the foundations to stop the central tower collapsing, and they discovered that more of the fortress remains underneath than they realised.