Meet the three men maintaining Beverley Minster for future generations

The name tells you all that you need to know. Beverley Minster isn’t a cathedral. It is one of the biggest parish churches in the UK. It is in the Diocese of York, but it stands, like a great independent galleon in full sail, on the plain of what was once a very marshy part of East Yorkshire. The main thing that the Minster lost when Henry’s minions came a-plundering, was the Chapter House. Just about everything else remains, and the vast structure, went up in the years between 1188 – just over a century after the Norman Conquest – and 1490.

The task of being today’s Surveyor to the Old Fund is Simon Delaney, of the Delaney Marling Partnership, who are one of Yorkshire’s leading building surveyors and property management consultants. In their portfolio, they advise on commercial, retail, academic, residential and industrial properties – and the gem that is Beverley Minster. Simon, 53, has been in post since 2017, and you might think that he knows every single inch of the building. Think again. He is still finding out new nooks and crannies within the fabric.

“The place is still a place of discovery and amazement, with places that are unfamiliar to me”, he admits. Now in his sixties, Steve Rial is one of Simon’s three-strong maintenance team, and this gifted plumber and glazier is joined by Dennis Massey and Rob Dodson, who are both stone masons. It seems unbelievable when comes to the day-to-day upkeep and constant restoration of this Grade I listed masterpiece, there are only a trio of men involved. And Steve is about to retire in October, after well over 30 years of service. He hopes that there may be opportunities to return and to help out, but he admits that “the day when I go will be very emotional, I cannot deny it. Even thinking about it, weeks in advance, makes me well up. It’s been part of my life for so many years.”

The very first church on this site (or very close by) was founded by John of Beverley, whose piety and reputation for healing the sick spread throughout the North. John (later made a saint) had many admirers, and among those was one of the last English Kings, Athelstan, who visited his tomb in 934, on his way to battle with the Scots. The campaign was a successful one, and Athlestan credited his victories to Bishop John. Not only that, but he also granted the “right of sanctuary” to the church.

John’s resting place was to be the centre of that right, and it extended out for a further two miles – meaning that if anyone needed to escape persecution, they could claim immunity when this invisible boundary had been crossed. The result was that the town of Beverley became a place of refuge for scores of those who wanted to escape the clutches of the law – for whatever reason. They were, if they got inside the building itself, untouchable, generally for about 30 days.

Simon observes: “Beverley town was the Botany Bay of its day……”. There is a Sanctuary Project at the Minster today, still doing extraordinary work.

Simon says that his favourite spot in the Minster is right up there, on the roof, looking out over the countryside on a fine summer’s day. This year, he has the company of a pair of Peregrine Falcons, who produced a pair of chicks, and who could be heard, after successfully fledging, screeching with joy as they whirled around the building. The roof itself, says Simon, is nearly three full football pitches in size, and most of it is leaded – which makes a fair old tonnage of pressure bearing down on the masonry beneath. What connects any privileged visitor to the generally inaccessible sections of the Minster to our ancestors is the amount of graffiti there is – not only carved into the stone itself, but scribbled onto beams, and etched into the glass.

On the great circular north window, there are tiny sketches, not from mediaeval times, but from as recently as WWII – someone took the time and trouble to scratch tiny vignettes of planes which flew out of a nearby air base. Not only of RAF planes, but also of the Luftwaffe.

“There are hammer and chisel, paint and pencil marks everywhere,” says Simon, “and one of the most intriguing was actually scratched into the lead. There are plenty of ‘signatures’ of palm and foot and thumb prints, but there’s one that has especially intrigued us all. It was Steve who discovered it, and he’s displayed it – along with several other markers – in one of the roof-spaces above the nave, seventy feet above ground level. You must climb 113 steps up a winding staircase to see it, but it really does make you think. One of lads who was working up there in the Georgian period has done a detailed picture of a manned balloon ascent.

There’s the balloon itself, the basket below it with two little chaps waving their Union Flags, and the picket fence around the site. Balloons were very rare, and the public didn’t get to see them that often.

In fact, Beverley is a Minster of many mysteries. Most of the masons who built it left their marks behind them, carved into the stones themselves. Many couldn’t write, but each mark is of a different design, unique and individual to the man, and the remarkable thing is that the same marks can be found in places like Southwell Minster, in Nottinghamshire, and in other ecclesiastical buildings further north. “The experienced mason was also a ‘jobbing worker’”, says Simon, “and he went where the employment could be found. He’d finish one project, and then he, and his mates, would move on.” There’s one elaborate signature on the wall of one of the staircases – of a determined young man named Marlon.

If he’s got one bit of advice about maintenance for everyone today, Simon cautions that we should all “clean your gutters – and as often as you can. When they clog up, the water backs behind the leaves, or whatever it is, and then it starts to seep down, causing damage as it goes. We are on constant look-out for this at the Minster, and it is a never-ending task.

“Another problem is that the Minster may be a wonderful landmark, and the tallest building for many miles, but each side of it has its own potential problem. A wind from the east can potentially do different damage to one from the west.”

Another incredible part of the complicated jigsaw is that the wooden beams also have to be constantly checked. Research has proved that some of the wood, when first placed in the roof in the years around 1200 was already half a millennium old. Other oaken timbers came – with royal assent – from Sherwood Forest. There’s one wooden support which hasn’t been carved into nice straight lines, it is a beautifully gnarly ‘S’ shape that fitted perfectly and suited its purpose.

It is still holding up some of the roof some 800 years later. But in addition to wood and stone, there are lightning rods which need maintenance, electrical circuits to keep in immaculate working order, and pipes to be lagged. It seems that our forebears in the maintenance department fitted all sorts of things in pretty much inaccessible places, and then expected the folk who followed them to scramble over, under, or across them. And then there’s a lot of brickwork as well – the Victorians were particularly fond of repairing the structure with locally-made bricks (which explains the number of village ponds in the area which were once clay pits), and then putting a stone facia over it. There are hatches and access points everywhere, and not all of them are in the most convenient places – especially if a fire alarm goes off.

Beverley Minster is unique, and a constant source of wonderment. “It’s fair to say that it is a massive wheel, turned by a few much smaller cogs”, says Simon, and you cannot take your eye off the ball, even for a moment. No day, or problem, is the same… we’re currently looking for someone whose speciality is making lead fittings. One of the great windows needs attention… it never ever stops.”

For information on services, opening times and guided tours: www.bevereleyminster.org.uk or at: 01482 868540