Beverley Minster Yorkshire
Beverley Minster in the East Riding of Yorkshire is one of the largest and most magnificent parish churches in England, a building of cathedral dimensions that surpasses many English cathedrals in the quality and ambition of its Gothic architecture. The minster was built in two main phases between approximately 1220 and 1420, producing a building in which the Early English Gothic of the east end and the fully developed Perpendicular Gothic of the west front represent the full range of English medieval church architecture within a single building, the stylistic development across two centuries displayed as a coherent architectural history in stone.
The west front of Beverley Minster is among the finest pieces of English Gothic church architecture, a screen of towers and niched statuary that was the direct inspiration for the west front of Westminster Abbey as designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor in the eighteenth century. The twin towers rise with elegant authority above the town and the surrounding East Riding plain and provide the visual anchor for the historic townscape of Beverley. Inside, the nave of extraordinary length and height creates an impression of soaring Gothic space that belies the building's parish church status, while the fourteenth-century Percy Tomb is one of the most exquisite pieces of Gothic funerary sculpture in England.
The Saxon origins of Beverley Minster give the building a depth of history that extends beyond its Gothic fabric. St John of Beverley, the eighth-century Bishop of York who established the first religious community here, became one of the most venerated saints of medieval England and the minster's status as a place of pilgrimage and sanctuary made it one of the most important churches in northern England throughout the medieval period. The sanctuary stone, indicating the bounds within which the right of sanctuary applied, still stands outside the minster door.
The market town of Beverley surrounding the minster is one of the finest in Yorkshire, its medieval street pattern, guild hall and Georgian townscape providing an excellent setting for a minster visit.