York Minster

Project Summary

York Minster Revealed has three main strands:

1. Training in craft skills and education
2. Access and interpretation for York Minster
3. Conservation and restoration of the East Front and the Great East Window

Training

It is very important to seize the opportunity to train new apprentices in the specialist skills of stone masonry and stained glass conservation required for a huge restoration project.  English Heritage has identified a serious lack of people suitably qualified to conserve our built heritage, which poses a real risk to its survival.

As the largest conservation project of its kind in Europe, the York Minster Revealed project offers crucial opportunities to recruit trainees and increase the national pool of skilled craftspeople.

Access

It is very important that we open to all the opportunity to understand the masterpiece that is the Great East Window in the context of the whole building and its continuing life and work.

The physical changes include:

• Making the Undercroft, Treasury and Crypts fully accessible to all by installing lifts and resolving floor level problems
• Improving visitor facilities within the Minster
• Providing a piazza outside the South Transept, with integral ramps for access from Minster Gates
• Removing the ticketing functions from the Minster to an existing external building

The image above shows a visual model of what the Piazza area outside the South Transept may look like.  Click on the image to enlarge it. 

The intellectual access changes include:

• Providing an interpretation scheme withn the main Minster building
• Developing an integrated educational programme which will allow people to engage with the Minster both when they're visiting the building and at home

Conservation

The conservation and restoration work will completely restore the stonework of the East Front of York Minster.  It will secure its structural future and reveal the beauty and legibility of the Apocalypse section of the Great East Window.  This use and development of cutting-edge glass conservation techniques will in turn inform stained glass conservation practice worldwide.