The peal of the cathedral's bells has been a distinctive call to daily services throughout the centuries, giving generations of church-goers prior warning to the start of worship.

But the Minster is now due to embark on a new musical era with the arrival of another 24 bells to complement an 11-strong set which has been in place since the 1980s.

The new additions will mean the Minster will become the first cathedral in England to have a carillon – the heaviest of all musical instruments.

And the arrival of the carillon will open up a whole new musical avenue for the cathedral, with a wider scope of notes ensuring almost any tune can now be played.

While its main use will still be to announce daily Evensong and other services, the carillon is due to be used at festival times to play a vast array of tunes ranging from compositions by classical composers such as Beethoven to contemporary classics from bands including The Beatles.

York Minster's Canon Precentor, Jeremy Fletcher, said: "The revival of chiming at the Minster has added to the sounds of York in recent years.

"We are delighted that York will be gaining a splendid carillon and hope that the quality and variety of the music played will add further to our worship and mission."

Played from a baton keyboard using the fists and feet instead of ropes, a carillon is composed of at least 23 cup-shaped bells. A "chime" is the name given to the same instrument which has less than 23 bells.

The new additions, which will create the first new carillon in the British Isles for 40 years, were cast at the foundry in Loughborough, Leicestershire, of Taylors, Eayre & Smith, where all of the existing Minster bells were created, and have been presented to the cathedral as a gift.

The chiming of tunes on the Minster bells dates back to the building of the present cathedral's towers in the middle of the 15th century.

The fabric rolls, which record the money spent as the building of the Minster progressed, have revealed that the Dean and Chapter of York paid John Newbald £1 3s 4d in 1473 as part of his wages for constructing a chiming machine that played tunes on the bells.

Other references in the cathedral's accounts have shown payments for keeping
the chiming machine in good order.

Historian Thomas Gent recorded in 1657 that the Lord Mayor and the city Aldermen gave £130 from Corporation Funds "towards new
founding some of the old bells, and making the chimes sound delightfully and perfectly on all of them".

However, chiming fell out of fashion during the 17th century and eventually the Minster's chiming machine was removed in 1750.

In 1989, 11 chime bells were bought from the redundant church of St. Mary's in
Nelson, Lancashire, and
installed above the ringing-peal in the Minster's south-west tower.

The chiming bells, which were cast in Loughborough in 1933, meant that, for the first time in more than 200 years, tunes could once again be played from the Minster.

But with only 11 notes the range of tunes was limited, although the arrival of the new bells will widen the musical spectrum immensely to cover three chromatic octaves.

The bells will be played by a carilloneur using a baton clavier sited in the ringing chamber which is below the bell chamber in the south-west tower and a group of volunteers is being trained ahead of the installation, which is expected to be completed by the start of next month .

The baton clavier is played by the carilloneur using both hand batons and feet pedals that look similar to a church organ pedal board.