York Minster now restored to glory

Press, 19 December 1988, Page 34

York Minster now restored to glory

BY

GILES ELGOOD

NZPA-Reuter York When a surveyor, Charles Brown, saw the damage done by fire to his beloved York Minster during the night of July 9, 1984, he broke down and wept. Four years later, Mr Brown has reason to smile at the huge task of restoration that he has supervised at Britain’s largest medieval cathedral.

“When you get a phone call at 5 a.m., you don’t believe it,” said Mr Brown, the Minster’s chief architect. “I burst into tears. I wasn’t alone.”

Fire, most probably caused by lightning, had destroyed the entire roof of the ancient cathedral’s south wing, along with the soaring fifteenth century vaulted ceiling below it.

The magnificent circular stained glass rose window, dating from the early sixteenth century, was hanging precariously in its lead framework, blackened by smoke and with 40,000 cracks caused by the heat.

More than 130 firemen fought the flames for two and a half hours, braving molten lead and burning timbers spilling from above, before the blaze

was brought under control.

The Minster’s clergymen joined the firefighters, dragging priceless candlesticks, crosses, carpets and tapestries outside to save them from the flames. It was the Minster’s fifth fire since the south transept was built by Archbishop Walter de Grey in 1230 on the site of two earlier churches.

Now, at a cost of $7.1 million, restoration work has been completed a year earlier than expected.

The Minster’s stone masons and carpenters have rebuilt the roof and vault of the south transept in the original style and the rose window’s glasswork has been restored to such a high standard that no fire damage can be seen from below.

Mr Brown, whose official title is Surveyor to the Fabric, said it was decided to use oak timbers to replace those destroyed when the transept roof burned down. Oak was preferred to steel or concrete as it was the only material that met the Minster authorities’ specification that the new roof last half a millen-

nium. “We know that timber can last 500 years,” Mr Brown said. “It is a brave man who will say that steel and reinforced concrete will last such a period.” Queen Elizabeth, who reopened the restored cathedral wing, was among many British landowners who gave oak trees from their estates when they heard of the fire damage. Under the new roof, the rebuilt ceiling vault features 62 new decorative carvings, each of which took five' or six weeks to make.

Six of them, designed by schoolchildren, show modern rather than biblical scenes, such as astronauts in space, famine relief in Africa and efforts to save the world’s whales. At the end of the transept is the seven metre rose window, whose restoration was described by Mr Peter Gibson, the Minster’s glass expert, as one of the most challenging conservation tasks undertaken.

Mr Gibson said that within an hour of the flames subsiding, he had inspected the window

from the top of a 30 metre ladder. He found it was damaged about as badly as glass could be without being destroyed, but he vowed to make it shine again. “I knew it could be restored and restored it has been,” Mr Gibson said. He injected specially developed glue into the spider’s web of cracks left by the heat and sandwiched each piece of stained glass between two pieces of clear glass before fitting new and thicker lead strips around the panes. Mr Gibson said his work would last another 100 or 150 years before the lead had to be replaced again. as he spoke, the normal cycle of restoration work at York Minster continued. Masons in the stoneyard below his workshop were preparing carved pinnacles for the Minster’s west doorway, untouched by the fire but now shrouded in scaffolding to repair the damage wrought by the passage of time.