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See it on video: York Minster restored
The original craftsmen of York Minster used hammers and chisels, expertly fashioning great blocks of Tadcaster limestone for this Gothic-style colossus.
Little has changed over the centuries. The Minster is in the latest stage of a restoration campaign and a new generation of stonemasons and glaziers are using tools barely different from their medieval forebears'.
York Minster Revealed is training skilled stonemasons and glaziers in workshops just yards from the mighty cathedral.
The project will improve access, including new toilets, and a glass lift down to the undercroft, currently entered down a steep flight of stairs, as well as glass flooring and ramps in the crypt to allow better views of its past.
Outside, the stone steps and wooden ramp at the entrance to the South Transept will be replaced with a sweeping stone entrance. A design has yet to be finalised but is in the shape of a vesica, an ancient Christian motif used in Gothic architecture, with two curved sides coming to a point at each end, similar in shape to an eye.
The blocked-off road between the South Transept and Minster Gates will be turned into a piazza to give a more welcoming approach to the Minster from the city centre of York.
The Yorkhire Post has been inside the Minster to meet the craftsmen and learn more about the restoration project. Join us for a close-up tour of the work, taking in the dizzying scaffold encasing the east side upon which today's masons are expertly replacing decaying stonework and meet one of the young people who has entered this ancient trade.
FACTFILE: The project will help to determine where John Thornton, the medieval craftsman who created the window, obtained his glass.
Thornton, regarded as the finest glass painter of his time, signed the contract on December 10, 1405, to create the East Window. He received 56 throughout the three years it took to complete. It will now cost 6m to restore the window in the Minster's Development Campaign, which is backed by the Yorkshire Post.
Another 15m from the 30m target will be used to repair stonework on the East Front, while the remainder of the money will be used to help fund the Minster choir and library.
More video: The Minster as you've never seen it, from 100m feet up
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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