Listed Building Description
Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.
In the entry for: BEVERLEY MINSTER YARD 10/179 The Minster Church of St John "National Monument Register Photograph" shall be added as last sentence of the description.
TA 0339 BEVERLEY MINSTER YARD 10/179 The Minster Church of 1.3.50 St John
GV I
Cathedral church. Rebuilding of eastern arm commenced c1225. High altar dedicated 1260. Nave c1308-50. North porch and west front c1390-1420. East window c1410-20. North east chapel c1490.
Tadcaster magnesian limestone incorporating some oolitic limestone from earlier structure and some chalk. Purbeck shafting to interior. Brick nave vault webbing, plastered. Lead roof.
Cruciform plan of 7-bay aisled chancel with square east end and single-bay eastern transepts, aisled to east. 3-bay aisled main transepts. Central tower.
ll-bay aisled nave with north porch and twin-towered west front. C13 section has prominent shafted buttresses with flyers. Lancet windows set in shafted arcades with moulded capitals. Bands of blind arcading, sunk quatrefoils and wheel windows to transept ends.
Nave: off-set buttresses with gabled niches, crocketed pinnacles and flyers. Curvilinear traceried windows. North porch is panelled with angle buttresses and crocketed pinnacles. Gabled entrance flanked by niches for figures of saints. Embattled parapet with further niches.
West front: twin towers with off-set angle buttresses and embattled parapets with crocketed pinnacles flanking west front. The whole adorned with panelling and canopied niches for statues which were provided after 1897. Crocketed ogee gable to west door surmounted by canopied niche. 9-light sub-arcuated west window.
Interior: East end: 3 storey elevation. Arcade of heavily moulded arches on clustered piers with keeled or filleted intermediate shafts. Triforium of two superimposed blind arcades. Clerestory lancets set in stepped, shafted arcade. Dogtooth moulding and Purbeck shafting. Moulded capitals to main elevation, stiff leaf to wall arcades. Quadripartite vaults on shafts descending to corbels in spandrels of arcade. Trefoil-headed wall arcading to aisles, incorporating steps to former chapter house on north side. C14 work continued in similar style with slight changes in details and traceried windows.
Fittings: Screen of c1334 designed to carry the shrine of St John and adjoining very fine Percy Tomb. Wood sedilia in similar style of c1345. Anglo Saxon stone seat known as 'Frith Stool'. Choir stalls of c1520 with 68 carved misericords. Screens of c1400. Late C12 Frosterley marble font with cover of 1713. Tread wheel crane above central crossing. Many fine monuments including tomb chest of Henry Percy of 1489 and others of C17-Cl9.
For futher description see: Pevsner, N. Yorkshire, East Riding 169-179. RCHM Beverley 7-15, Bilson, J 'Beverley Minster' Architectural Review 3 (1894-1898) 197, Bilson, J 'Beverley Minster': some stray notes' Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 25 1917, 221-235, Hoey, L; 'Beverley Minster in Its 13th Century Context' Journal of Society of Architectural Historians XLIII 1984, 209-224. Transactions of the British Archaeological Association Beverley Minster 1986.
Listing NGR: TA0376139262