Two months or so ago I received an email from the folks at the York Minster (where I volunteer) which asked if I wanted to see the new statue of Saint Peter. This opportunity was open to the hundreds of volunteers, but you had to call and reserve your spot, as the spots were first come, first serve. I though 'Sure, why not?' and called to get my name on the list.
On the day of my visit to the statue, I showed up and the gal at the desk told me to go to the east end, near the scaffolding, next to the lift (elevator). Wait - the scaffolding OUTSIDE? Yes, outside. Before I knew it, I was wearing a hard hat and going up the blue elevator (pictured below) to the tippy-top of the York Minster. ON THE OUTSIDE!
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| York Minster scaffolding and blue elevator |
I don't even like going up a ladder, so being this high up was quite an accomplishment for me. I took the picture below as I got off the elevator on the ninth floor and you can see how high up we were. The scaffolding consisted of 2 X 4s that had about a 2 inch gap between them; not big enough to fall through, but big enough to see through. I took the photos in this post while white-knuckle gripping my iPhone & hoping I didn't drop it. Thankfully, the phone and I made it down in one piece!
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| View of York from the ninth floor of the scaffolding |
Looking up through the scaffolding, our tour group full of volunteers could see the gothic spires that top the Minster.
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| View of the Minster's gothic spires from the top of scaffolding |
The new statue of Saint Peter took four stone carvers a full year each to carve. St. Peter is the patron saint of the minster and this statue replaces the medieval statue that was in major disrepair. We noticed that the legs were smaller in proportion to the torso, which in turn was smaller than the head. Our tour leader (also a volunteer) explained that this was done intentionally so that when viewed from the ground, St. Peter looks proportionally accurate.
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| New Saint Peter statue |
We took the scaffolding stairs one level down and took a look at the "green man" at the foot of the statue. You can learn more about architectural green men by going here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Man
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| Green man just below Saint Peter statue |
We had about ten more minutes before the tour was over, so the leader asked us if we wanted to go up the scaffolding stairs to the tippy-top to see the view and some gothic spire sculptures. All but one rather queasy gal (holding onto the scaffolding for dear life) opted to go up. I was very near queasy, but when will I ever get the chance to do this again? I braced myself and climbed up and up.
At the top, there's still a lot of scaffolding, but no green mesh so you can see quite a bit. In the picture below you see the central tower and several of the gothic spires in the distance.
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| View of the Minster's central tower from tenth floor of scaffolding |
The spire closest to us contained the historic disease sculptures. The tour leader is pointing (in the photo below) to the plague doctor sculpture. During the plague in the Middle Ages, doctors wore beak-like masks filled with herbs to ward off the smell of the dead and dying. To the left of the plague doctor you can see a woman with boils (zoom in to see a boil on her armpit) and next to her is a mad man.
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| Disease sculptures on gothic spire |
Another picture of the disease sculptures is below. The mad man is to the right, and sadly, I don't remember what the other two sculptures are depicting. I was focused on trying to take a few good photos while not dropping my camera, not bumping into the others on the tour, not tripping and falling, or, you know, causing a general catastrophe!
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| Disease sculptures on gothic spire |
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| A Medieval raspberry? |
And a guy mooning half of the city of York! Who knew these were up here? Why did the medieval sculptors take so much time working on such intricate carvings that no one could see without climbing up the walls?
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| A Medieval mooning of the enemy |
Before climbing back down to the ninth floor lift, I got a few more photos of the city and its minster. I knew this vantage point would be one I'll most likely never see again. It was exhilarating, beautiful, and scary as hell all at the same time!
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| Another view of York from scaffolding |
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| Central Tower and another gothic spire |
Once back on solid footing I called Bill at work. I think I talked a mile a minute describing my 30 minutes on the scaffolding. My adrenaline eventually wore off, but it took quite a while. I can't believe I, the gal scared to climb a ladder, was basically on the roof of the minster. Yay, me!!
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| York Minster: front spires & central tower (no Gothic pointy bits on top) I was on the back of the minster looking at the back spires & central tower |
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