Church Heritage Record 643223

Beverley Minster is of Cathedral size, with double transepts in the pattern of Lincoln, York and Caterbury. Rectilinear in form, the Minster church of Beverley has an eleven-bay aisled nave with a prominent twin-towered west front and a porch to the north. Two three-bayed transepts aisled on both sides flank a central tower. A seven-bayed aisled chancel with two smaller transepts to the north-east and and south-east, of a single bay each, extend eastwards to a rectangular east end. The second bay of the north-eastern most transept is occupied by the Percy chapel of one bay only. There are remnants of a chapter house between the two northern transepts, however, these are largely below ground, with little extant archaeology demonstrating its scale.

The nave measures 51.8m (170ft) x 19.5m (64.3ft) including the two aisles which are 6m (20ft) wide and run its length. The tower is 16.5m (54ft) squared. The north and south transepts both measure 17m (56ft) x 18m (60ft) aisled on both sides with a 6m (20ft) wide aisle. The chancel measure 35m (115ft) in length, and has a width of 22.5m (74ft). The north-east and south-east smaller transepts adjoin the chancel, each measuring 14.3m (47ft) x 9.7m (32ft). However, the addition of a single-bayed chapel to the north-east transept, measuring 6m (20ft) x 6m (20ft) extends this. The northern porch of the nave, though small, warrants mention here for its grandeur. This measures 6m (20ft) x 4.2m (14ft).

Beverley Minster dominates the south end of the historic town and is visible for miles around.  The building represents a prosperous medieval church on a huge scale, whose plan form and standing structure provide a palimpsest through which the principles of Gothic design and the changing demands of medieval and post-medieval liturgy can be understood. The result is a church predominantly of the Decorated, ‘Transitional’ and Perpendicular styles, though evidence of an earlier date is present.

Its grandeur and sheer scale can be attributed to the more formal ecclesiasticism for which it was known, catering to the outer reaches of the East Riding. The oldest (in terms of its history) and largest building in Beverley still used for its original purpose, the Minster represents both continuity and change within the town, providing evidence for social, religious and political histories that also form part of a national narrative.

Archaeology

The archaeological potential of the site of the Minster and its environs is high with evidence of activity from the early medieval period onwards likely to be discovered by any potential excavation. 

Prehistoric

Archaeological investigation has provided evidence for settlement and activity in the Neolithic and Iron Age periods. There are a number of scattered findspots within the town.  More substantive remains of prehistoric date lie on the western side of Beverley on higher ground at Westwood Common. Here a group of both Neolithic to Bronze age Bowl Barrows and Iron Age Square Barrows survive along with evidence of late Iron Age enclosures and field systems. The potential for finds of this period from the churchyard is low.

Roman

Roman coins and other settlement material have been found in the parish and town, of the 2nd century and later. The potential for finds of this period from the churchyard is low.

Anglian

The market town of Beverley, positioned on the edge of the Wolds, owes its significance to its ecclesiastical origins. The importance of the town developed alongside the growing significance of the Minster. It is evident that the site of the Minster has been home to a place of worship for approximately 1300 years. It is widely accepted that it derived its pre-Conquest influence from association with Bishop John of York and is the site of Inderawuda, where according to Bede John founded a monastery on his retirement in c. 714.

Archaeological excavations at nearby Lurk Lane revealed what is thought to be part of an early monastic enclosure with 8th-century origins, and more recent investigation to the south of the Minster’s nave indicates a probable Saxon church positioned at a different alignment to the present building. The potential for finds of this period from the churchyard is high.

Saxon

The Minster’s re-foundation as a collegiate church of secular canons is commonly attributed to King Aethelstan in the early 10th century, although some scholars consider its establishment to be the result of a gradual process of endowment, retrospectively assigned to Aethelstan for the prestige which might be inferred by such royal patronage. The potential for finds of this period from the churchyard is high.

Medieval 

The town continued to grow under the Normans when its trading industry was first established. Beverley became a notable wool-trading town with connections to the Hanseatic League, and for a time in the 15th century was the tenth-largest town in England,, as well as one of the richest, because of its role in the wool trade, and the pilgrims who came to venerate St John of Beverley.  The potential for finds of this period in the churchyard is high, including human remains.

Post-Reformation

Following the Reformation, the regional stature of Beverley was much reduced, as the pilgrimages ceased. The Minster was passed over as a potential cathedral, but maintained a regional role. Beverley became a prosperous market town, with light industry developing from the 18th century onwards. The restoration of the Minster was undertaken at this time.

19th century

The railway comes to Beverley, development of the race course, expansion of local industry, and revival of the town.

20th century

In the 20th century, Beverley was the administrative centre of the local government district of the Borough of Beverley (1974-1996). It is now the County Town of the East Riding. In the latter half of the century it became a prosperous market town with a number of commuters and retired people, and the tourist industry gained in importance.

The Minster

Pilgrimage to John of Beverley’s tomb, which is thought to have remained in its original position at the east end of the nave since his burial in 721, undoubtedly contributed to the Minster’s accrual of both wealth and power, and facilitated successive building campaigns which continued until the 15th century. A mid 12th-century charter evidences substantial building work following John’s canonization in 1037. Although little is known of this late Saxon church, it is clear that Archbishop Cynesige (1051-60) was responsible for the addition of a stone tower to the existing church which received a new presbytery and gilded ceiling between 1060-9 under Archbishop Eadred (Woodworth 2011, 9). There is no written record of building work in the Norman period, although chevron-decorated masonry of c.1120-60 reused in the nave triforium, and excavated 12th century buttresses beneath those of the present nave, indicate a substantial Romanesque structure. It can be assumed that this was the building seriously damaged by the fire of 1188 recorded by Roger of Howden (Woodworth 2011a, 49). Reference to the subsequent rebuilding is made in a miracle story of c.1213-15 which describes the construction and collapse of a ‘very high tower’ by craftsmen.

The fall of the central tower necessitated (or provided the opportunity for) the complete rebuilding of the church, and the building which followed - with its double transepts and rectilinear footprint - has survived to the present day. Work begun at the east end is stylistically datable to c.1230, and, excepting the nine-light ‘Perpendicular’ east window and the panelling above, is characteristic of ‘Early English’ work, comprising on the exterior shafted lancet windows, blind arcading, pinnacles and gablets. By c.1260, the four-bay choir, retrochoir, greater and lesser transepts, crossing, chapter house and first bay of the nave extending westwards were complete. The style of the east end elevation is broken only by the Percy Chapel of c.1490, and continues into the single-aisled east transepts where three tiers of paired lancets are separated by further blank arcading and small, dog-toothed rose windows. Between the east and the west transepts the system of elevation continues, with flying buttresses throughout, apart from the north (west) transept, the structural failure of which brought about the campaign of repair and reconstruction in the 18th century. The lost chapter house, which has been identified as octagonal was positioned between the transepts on the north side and only the double staircase in the north choir remains. In the main transepts, tiers of lancet windows are positioned above large richly-moulded portals flanked by blank bays. Within each gable is a ten-part plate-tracery rose window and above these sit an elongated vescia in the south and a lancet set between diagonal square panels in the north transept. Within the interior of the 13th century eastern arm the main arcades are supported by cluster piers and above these at triforium level, four trefoil-headed arches fill each bay, with blind arches and black quatrefoils set into the space behind them. Dogtooth ornament and Purbeck marble shafting are used extensively both in the triforium and the clerestory, where each bay comprises five stepped arches in front of a narrow gallery, and this style continues into the first bay of the nave from the crossing.

A new shrine for St John was commissioned in 1298, and it was completed in 1309, a year after the high altar was consecrated. It seems that with this came the opportunity to recommence building, for work started on the nave again in 1311. The workmen of the 14th century replaced the Norman nave with a structure that, despite being under construction almost a century later than its eastern counterpart, is in architectural unity with that existing work. The aisled nave continues the pattern of the 13th building, with the most fundamental change evident from the exterior in the tracery of the ‘Decorated’ style of the aisle windows, (excepting the three west of the north porch which are perpendicular) with mouchettes on the north side and a leaf motif on the south, in addition to the c.1360 large clerestory windows identified as ‘transitional’ or a ‘hybrid’ between Decorated and Perpendicular work.

Internally, the quadripartite vault of the eastern part of the church continues throughout the nave, and the stylistic treatment of the nave capitals and the scarcity of Purbeck marble throughout its length are the only elements that reveal the 14th century origin of an otherwise successful imitation of earlier work. On the north side the early 15th century two-storey porch displays a cusped gable enclosing an ogee-hooded portal, with blind panelling, a frieze and pinnacles. A later intervention is the 18th century reconstruction of the three bays east of the south-western tower designed to harmonize the 14th century aisle with the site of the former St Martin’s chapel attached to the south side of the nave, evidence of which is visible in the remains of an undercroft at the base of the south-west aisle wall, including chamfered springing ribs and an octagonal pier.

The west front of Beverley Minster is stylistically datable to the 15th century. In common with all English Minster establishments, the 16th century altered the institutional structure of Beverley Minster, the religious experience it provided and the physical fabric of the building itself. The Reformation was responsible for the transformation of one of the largest ecclesiastical institutions in the north of England and the wealthiest establishment in the East Riding, to a parish church serving around 3,000 souls. In 1547 the college of secular canons was dissolved alongside any remaining religious guilds and chantries, and the Minster and associated buildings were granted to Sir Michael Stanhope, who subsequently offered to sell the church, chapter house and charnel to the town. In 1548 the chapter house and charnel were demolished to recompense those who had raised the money to save the Minster as a parish church, leaving only the double staircase to the chapter house in the north choir aisle.

As early as 1552 the church was reported to be in a state of decay, and by the end of the century the town of Beverley was also in decline, the effects of dissolution exacerbated by the extinction of the wool trade on which it had previously prospered. By the end of the 17th century the medieval central tower, which is considered to have been a tall octagonal structure contemporaneous with the 14th century nave, alongside the north-west transept, had developed serious signs of structural stress, and in 1717 it was feared that the Great North Transept would collapse and bring down the Choir with it.

There followed a substantial restorative building campaign in the early 18th century led by Nicholas Hawksmoor and implemented by John Thornton which secured the north transept, conducted restoration works. Hawksmoor also removed the medieval tower and replaced it with a lead-covered ogival cupola; the crossing tower is of brick faced with stone with wide blank ogee arches. This period also saw substantial reordering of the Minster’s interior, and the replacement of all the roofs apart from that over the central nave, utilising large amounts of reused timber in their reconstruction.

The repair of the building’s envelope saved it from collapse, and a building campaign on such a scale has not been required since its undertaking. Many of the Georgian alterations, however, did not survive the next century. Significant programmes of work were completed in the 19th century although these were primarily concerned with aesthetic and liturgical considerations. Re-ordering in the 1820‘s under Thomas Rickman, which saw the removal of the cupola and the Georgian box pews and galleries which had been erected in the nave, was followed by restoration in the 1860’s and 70’s by George Gilbert Scott, involving the cleaning of the Minster and the installation of a new choir screen. This was the last major campaign to be undertaken at the Minster, followed by minor alterations and additions, including the statuary of the reredos and the west front.

The West End

The Perpendicular west front of the Minster dates from the 15th century and presents an impressive facade as one enters the town from every direction. It is divided into three bays by two large, yet graceful towers which flank a central bay, all of which has been completed in the Perpendicular style. The nine-light sub-arcuated west window is divided mid-way by a transom, below which, the heads of the lower lights are arched and cusped. The acutely pointed arch of the window, like its eastern counterpart, adorns panelled Perpendicular tracery, and forms over the very centre of the elevation. Above this lies a highly decorated ogee arch complete with cusping and crockets of the decorated and transitional phase. Blank pannelling of the Perpendicular style reaches up to a pediment filled with tracery believed to have been designed by Hawksmoor. It is topped by embattled parapets and crocketed pinnacles.

Beneath this, an elaborate portal gives access to the nave. Its jambs have two pairs of shafts decorated with stiff-leaf capitals, and the hollows are richly decorated with small fleurons indicating that, although the doorway is technically Transitional, it retains elements of the Decorated style. The entrance is surmounted by a crocketed ogee gable and surrounded by canopied niches filled with later 19th century statues.

The slender west towers of the Minster terminate in fourteen crocketed pinnacles. The west towers are buttressed at the angles, and step back substantially at the height of the sill of the bell-openings. The buttresses have canopied niches for statues provided after 1897, though on the whole of this elevation there is only one original figure; that of Henry Percy on the norrthern side of the north tower. The two three-light belfry windows sit above a band of blank panelling, which extends across both towers and is continued on the main elevation. The small doorway in the south tower imitates the main, central entrance decorated with fleurons and rich moulding, and surrounded by numerous niches, filled with statuary from the late 19th century.

The Nave and Aisles

The first three four-light windows of the nave aisle are Perpendicular, however the following five are stylistically Curvilinear, with reticulation units, mouchettes and mouchette wheels. Off-set buttresses with gabled niches, crocketed pinnacles and flyers to the clerestory, support this elevation. The second and third windows are cut by the monumental, two-storeyed porch which characterises the elevation. The clerestory, which is very high and adds much to the general dominance of the church, contains nine three-light windows, identified as ‘Transitional’ or a ‘Hybrid’ between Decorated and Perpendicular. This is topped by eight smaller crocketed pinnacles in line with the flying butresses. 

The North Porch

On the north side the early 15th century, the north porch is of two-storeys and features an ogee gable reaching up into the upper storey, with cusping and niches on either side for figures of saints, and a frieze of images above. Behind this the face is pannelled, though blankly, and Perpendicular in style, each panel arched and cusped. Two slender single-light windows, again of the Perpendicular style, flank the very top of the ogee gable.

Great North Transept

The northern arm of the transept is of three bays divided by two large turreted butresses. There is a large, single-arched portal, adorning shafts with lush stiff-leaf capitals, richly moulded arches and bands of blank arcading to the left and right. Tiers of lancet windows are positioned above this large richly-moulded portal, flanked by blank bays. Within the gable is a ten-part plate-tracery rose window and above these sit a lancet set between diagonal square panels. This entire elevation was the subject of substantial restorative building campaigns during the early 18th century led by Nicholas Hawksmoor. The Transept, which had fallen into decay, was secured, and restored to its medieval appearance.

Choir aisle (North)

The northern chancel aisle is in three bays. It follows the system of the east end exterior and contains three broad lancets, all of which are flanked by narrow blank bays. On this side is located the vestry and public toilets of a much later date. The flyers of the butresses continue, though the easternmost one supports both the clerestory and the smaller nothern transept.

Smaller Northern Transept

The smaller northern transept has three tiers of differently treated, paired lancets. The first and second tiers of lancets are separated by blank arcading and a single lancet in the gable. This transept, despite its small size, adds much to the vertical decoration of the north face of Beverley Minster. That the transepts have an east and no west aisle, makes for a certain lopsidedness in the north and south views, it nonetheless provides ample character to their design. Evidence of a former chapter house exists in the form of the double staircase in the north choir. This lost chapter house has been identified as octagonal and was positioned between the transepts on the north side.

The Percy Chapel

In 1490 a chapel to Henry Percy, Fourth Earl of Northumberland, was constructed in the angle between the retrochoir and the north east transept. Although small, and only of a single bay, this scheme of works shows a break in the 13th century system of the elevation, which otherwise runs on into the rectangular east end. The windows both have Perpendicular tracery. The window in the northen bay is of five-lights beneath a four-centred arch and adorns panelled tracery, whereas the eastern window, by contrast, adorns a three-light, pointed window.

The East End

The high east window is, like its western counterpart, is of nine lights and once again Perpendicular in style. However, though stylistically similar to its western counterpart, the east window replaces a previous rose window and three lancets. A battlmented transom divides the window, below which the heads of the lower lights are arched and cusped. The acutey pointed arch, complete with panelled and Perpendicular tracery is formed over the centre of the elevation beneath a crocketed ogee gable flanked by sunken quatrefoils, blank panelling and three slender lancets. Supported by 13th century butresses, this façade has nook shafts and is topped by pinnacles. As with the west front, the east end buttresses adorn canopied niches with statues, the most notable of which are John of Beverley and Athelstan on the inner faces. 

Smaller Southern Transept

The smaller southern transept, like its northern counterpart continues the system unchanged, making characteristic use of tiers of stepped lancets separated by blank arcading. The rose windows of the aisles display great use of dogtooth ornament, providing small traces of earlier work.

Choir aisle (South)

The choir exposed between the two transepts on the southern side continues the 13th century system so prevalent in the eastern arm of the church. In the south choir aisle, the windows are Perpendicular replacements, topped by diapered Perpendicular parapets with undulating tracery on the clerestory. The stone vaulting within called for flying buttresses, however these have not been uniformly provided, and variations in the treatment of the north and south transepts are obivous.

South Transept

In the south transept there is a large portal flanked by blank bays. The portal adorns shafts with lush stiff-leaf capitals, and both have arches richly moulded and round. However, where this differs form its northern counterpart, is where the southern portal becomes a twin, with arches of the coinciding kind beneath a larger rounded arch. Above are three equal lancets, then three stepped lancets, and then the gable with a rose window with ten columns and plate tracery – the only other occurrence of this motif in the Minster. Though the details between the tops of the north and south transept elevations differ, the south adorning an elongated vescia, the principle is the same on both faces. The west side of the transept exhibits no change in the system.

Crossing tower

The crossing tower is low, and the wide blank ogee arches are of the early 18th century. Though traces remain of an ogee dome constructed during this period, the 19th century saw this removed when the northern transept was saved from collapse by William Thornton.

Nave (South)

 The south nave has nine three-light southern  aisle windows which are Curvilinear in form, and display a strikingly similar character to that of the northern aisle, adorning a leaf motif, similar to, though smaller than the Bishop’s Eys at Lincoln. These south windows are said to be those reused from St. Martin’s church and this elevation, like that of the northern, has off-set buttresses with gabled niches, crocketed pinnacles and flyers to the clerestory. The tracery of the nine three-light clerestory windows is Transitional between Decorated and Perpendicular, again displaying a striking unanimity with the northern elevation. In the south wall of the nave is a Gothic doorway believed to have been built/remodelled by Hawksmoor.

The interior of the Minster demonstrates the design and skilled execution of the medieval craftsmen. In its scale and architectural quality, the manipulation of proportion, the contrast of light and dark and the use of perspective effects for aesthetic impact; the interior displays spatial complexity, subtle differentiation between decorative elements and an illusion of height and weightlessness unseen elsewhere.

The Eastern End

Within the interior of the 13th century eastern arm, the main arcades are supported by cluster piers and above these at triforium level, four trefoil-headed arches fill each bay, with blind arches and black quatrefoils set into the space behind them. Dogtooth ornament and Purbeck marble shafting are used extensively both in the triforium and the clerestory, where each bay comprises five stepped arches in front of a narrow gallery, and this style continues into the first bay of the nave from the crossing.

The eastern wall of the retrochoir, with its Perpendicular east window, differs from the rest of the eastern part of the building. The window, on its interior, has for the part below the transom, a grille which doubles the mullions. Beneath this runs 13th century blank arcading. The arches are pointed with trefoils in the spaces between them. The colonettes of the arcade are of Purbeck marble and the capitals are decorated with lush stiff-leaf and dogtooth ornament. The side walls of the projecting retro-choir have lancets flanked by blank bays, following the form of the exterior, though are heavily adorned with dogtooth ornament. This follows a stylistically similar routine to the rest of the eastern arm, with wall arcading and triforium on the neighbouring eastern aisles of the smaller eastern transepts. Making much use of Purbeck marble shafting, the triforium, whose arcading is in two layers with one set in front of the other, is unique. The front is pointed and trefoiled and the back much lower and normally pointed with blank quatrefoils in the spaces above the lower arches. The clerestory has one lancet in each bay, but it remains the centre of a composition of five stepped lancet arches. The whole area has quadripartite rib-vaulting which runs into the main transepts.

Crossing Tower

The east crossing piers break the Early English uniformity of the church. For most of their height they have flat faces, and set against these are, firstly, two bays of very tall blank lancets, and then, on corbels, two bays of Purbeck marble arcading. Moving further forward, triplets of squat Purbeck shafts carrying a shelf above, brings us back to a normal section, providing what is believed to actually be a double overhang. The western piers revert back to the standard system, and are of Purbeck marble. The vaulting over the intersection, at Beverley had been completed at the time of construction for the present low tower, and consists of a transverse and longitudinal rib.

The Great Transepts

The Great Transepts are beautifully proportioned to the main body of the church, and is pure Early English. Aisled on both their eastern and western sides, the Purbeck marble, stiff-leaf and dogtooth arcading from the east arm of the church, continues the system to this scheme of works. Of four bays apiece, they face exquisitely proportioned end walls that may well be said to represent the Beverley system in its greatest purity.

The Nave and Aisles

Despite the century of difference between completion of the eastern arm, and commencement of work on the nave in the early 14th century, there is a striking architectural unity with the existing work. The quadripartite vault of the eastern part of the church continues throughout the nave, and the stylistic foliated treatment of the nave capitals and the scarcity of Purbeck marble throughout its length, are the only elements that reveal the 14th century origins of an otherwise successful imitation of earlier work.

The wall of the south aisle was constructed earlier than that of the north and is traceried differently. The wall arcade below the windows is a very beautiful feature, and on the south side the arcade is Early English in all but date; that in the north aisle is later, and has rich ogee arches, with curious figures at the intersection. The change to the Perpendicular style is most noticeable on the north side, where the work west of and including the north porch is entirely in that style. The space below the magnificent Perpendicular west window is pierced by the west doorway with an ogee canopy which is surrounded by two tiers of niches, below which is an arcade.

The western terminations of the north and south aisles differ from one another by necessity.  The elevation of the first bay in the nave and the first piers are in the 13th century idiom, but the aisle windows are Decorated. On the south side, within the first bay, the capitals of the wall arcading are of the newer, 14th century ‘nobbly’ leaf type, and hoodmould stops appear in the form of a variety of far-projecting little busts, demi-figures and figures. Though the pointed-trefoiled form of the wall arcading remains; the curve of the arch and the quadripartite vault is subtly different. On the north side, the differences are more radical due to their later date. The blank arcading now becomes thickly crocketed ogee arches, a fully 14th century motif. The shape of the piers, the triforium and even the dogtooth ornament all remain in unity with the eastern arm. The vault in the nave is infilled in brick, and plastered. The bases of the piers now adorn small figures as hoodmould stops.

The bay of the towers has a wooden vault higher than the others. The west wall is panelled and the jambs of the great west window have tiers of figures. The upper part of the walls between the nave and the towers has blank Perpendicular windows, with descending mullions in their lower two thirds. In the north aisle the blank arcading continues, suggesting that construction of the north tower was begun before that of the south. The superb tierceron star vaulting of this aisle presents a variation from the south. In the south aisle the whole south wall has Perpendicular panelling, and the vault has diagonal and ridge ribs.

The great West Window consists of 107 compartments of which seventy-one lights of irregular shape form the upper portion. The rectangular part of the window is composed of two rows of nine lights of considerable size, separated from each other by a transom which contains thirty-six small compartments.