practicalguideto00unse_0

18
YORK MINSTER.
It seems impossible to be disappointed in York Minster,
however high may have been previous expectations.
When you first gain a view of this mountain of ecclesiastical
architecture, or at entering cast your eye through a vista of
624 feet, or from the tesselated pavement gaze through
column and arch up to the ribbed and fretted dome, 99 feet
above you, or catch the light of a thousand wreathed and
trembling rainbows, through gloriously refulgent windows,
you are lost in wonder and astonishment. Its different
parts, nave, transept, choir, chapter-house, and crypt,
with the rich decorations of screen, statue, tracery, and
monument, where sleep the illustrious dead, require many
surveys, and repay all with the fulness of admiration. The
original erection on this site is of great antiquity ;
and the
present edifice, though more than two hundred and fifty
years in building, displays, amid variety of taste and style,
great unity of design. It has loftily withstood the attacks
of time and the depredations of war. * * The magnificent
swell of the organ, and the majesty and sweetness of
the chants, especially during Sabbath worship, seem unearthly.
Twice on every week-day the service of prayer
and praise ascends from this venerable Cathedral, and it is
a touching thought, that its great heart of stone keeps
alive that incense to Jehovah which too often grows dim
and cold on the altar of the living soul." Mrs. Sigourney.
DESCRIPTION.
EXTERIOR.
York Cathedral is built in the form of a cross. The length
from the extreme of the buttresses east to west is 524 feet
extreme breadth (z.e., length of transepts), north to south,
250 feet. The Minster of York presents many styles of
architecture, the crypt having some remains of Saxon together
with early Norman at the west end. In the eastern
portion of the building there is late Norman, early English in
the north and south transepts, decorated in the nave and
chapter-house, early perpendicular in the lady chapel, perpendicular
in the choir, and late perpendicular in the central
and two western towers. It is built of magnesian limestone from
quarries near Tadcaster; from Huddleston, near Sherburn,
Mil ford Junction ; and from Stapylton, near Pontefract. The
stone when newly quarried is of a very soft nature, and
consequently easily worked. For the late repairs of the south