The building
Begun in 1121 and never finished. There is scaffolding on it somewhere today, as there has been for most of its life.
The works department
Still being built
Two masons work here full time and have done since the yard reopened in 1974. They cut replacement stone from the same quarry the original came from, by hand, to the same profiles, and a block takes between three days and five weeks.
There is scaffolding somewhere on this building at all times. There always has been, and a cathedral without it is a cathedral that has stopped.
Nine hundred years, briefly
- 1121 — the first church. Norman, cruciform, and almost entirely gone; the crypt piers are what is left of it.
- 1265 — the quire. Early English, and the finest thing in the building. Look up before you look at anything else.
- 1408 — the great east window. Its glass is the largest area of medieval glass in one window in England.
- 1547 — the Reformation. The images were taken down. The scars are still visible on the nave piers and have deliberately not been made good.
- 1832 — the Victorians. A restoration that removed a good deal and saved rather more. Opinions locally remain divided.
- 1974 — the works yard reopens. After eighty years of contracted repairs, the Minster started cutting its own stone again.
- 2009 to 2020 — the organ. Eleven years and the building's largest single project since the Victorians.
The glass
About seventy per cent of the medieval glass survives, which is extraordinary and is largely because a churchwarden took it out and buried it in 1643.
It is being conserved panel by panel in the studio in the Yard, at roughly one window every three years, which means the programme has about a century left to run. Visitors may watch the conservators work on Thursday mornings.