Beverley Minster

Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, is graced by both four- and five-star parish churches. Beverly Minster had its origins in a monastery founded in the 8th century by St. John of Beverley. After he was canonized, in the 11th, a collegiate church came about, in part to accommodate pilgrims to his burial site. That church burned down in 1188, necessitating a new, grander collegiate church. This is the Minster that has come down to us today, another parish church of nearly cathedral dimensions, this time in very largely Decorated style (think: Flamboyant). There were many items of note, but the sculptural program within, particularly the images of musicians (Beverley apparently was a guild center for musicians), and a very rare Green Woman, interested us most.

Huge west window

Nave

Elevation

Vaulting

Snake charmer

Let the music begin...

Most of these along the north wall of the nave

Beverley is sometimes the stunt-double for Westminster Abbey 

Largest and fanciest of all church gift shoppes we have seen; alas, closed on Sundays

Helpful floor plan

In chancel

More beautiful carving in the quire; including 68 misericords

Thus

More music

Abaft the beam

Our Founder

Green Man

Green Woman; extraordinarily rare

And the band played on

Decorated...

We did the Sunday carvery here; not memorable

Selby Abbey

After Brodsworth we drove on into North Yorkshire and spent the night in a beautiful and quiet rural car park, by Burn Bridge, on the Selby Canal. Fisher-persons and dog-walkers, all gone before sunset. Next morning, July 21st, we began a three church spree, beginning with Selby Abbey, another five star parish church that, until 1539, had been the main church for one of England's more prominent and prosperous abbeys. Selby Abbey church could pass for a cathedral in most parts of the world, at least in size and grandeur. It suffered relatively little in the Dissolution, a bit more in the Civil War, and quite bit in subsidence and a 1906 fire. But it was always renovated or rebuilt. And it has one surpassingly interesting architectural quirk.

View from the crossing

From the quire

Vicki studies a window

The great east window, 1330; very old for England, very
rare to have survived Cromell

Artfully conflates the "Tree" of Jesse with the Last Judgement

Can't tell the players without a program; the educational
program at Selby was superlative, as good as most cathedrals

North aisle

Helpful model of the church as it was before the 1906 fire

Actually it gets way more interesting than this

One of the more extreme instances of subsidence in this church; a bit scary, really;
like the York Minster, its foundation consisted of 4 feet of sand...

Cafe/gift shoppe...most of the five-bangers have such

Nave view

Levitating font hood

So here it gets really crazy; this is the south (starboard) elevation in the nave;
nice double lancet Gothic arches in the gallery (pointy things)(never mind the
big Roman arches below)

Then, from the same place, you look at the left elevation and...no pointy arches!
Normally, in Medieval churches you expect to see some degree of transition,
evolution, especially if the structure took a few centuries to build, BUT, the
transition is always west to east, or east to west, NEVER on opposite sides of
the nave; totally weird and worth the price of admission all by itself; obviously
there was a committee of architects that decided to split the difference...

Thus: compare the left and right galleries

Moving right along, enjoying the sculptural program outside

Not funny

Restored?

View from the starboard bow, with the great east window to the right

Brodsworth Gardens

Brodsworth's gardens are a Victorian dream, a collection of different gardens...formal, Italian, sculpted shrubs, parklands, sculpture walkways, fern garden, rose garden, alpine and woodland gardens, some of it placed in and over the old quarry. No walled garden though. Still a wonder to see and appreciate.

Giant cedar on the front lawn

View to some of the parklands

Temple in distance

 

Former archery range