Geriatric OE

The weekly musing of a couple of Kiwis on their geriatric OE in The UK






Thursday, 26 December 2013

York and the Minster

I've been reading a book by Ken Follet called The Pillars of The Earth. One of the main characters is a stone mason who dreams of building a cathedral. He describes the building of it in his mind, naming the different parts and their function. This afternoon The Man and I visited York Minster and the book came to life. In my minds eye I saw Tom, the mason, sketching out the plan on a plaster tablet, using multiples of his rod to create the perfect dimensions. Each structure a multiple of a single measure, thus making it pleasing to the eye.
Our modern buildings go up at breakneck speed compared to the years and manpower that it took to build a masterpiece such as The Minster.


There are many many tombs within the great building, some with dates as early as 1740. The beginning parts of the church are much older though dating from the mid 1100's
Outside proud of countenance, is a statue of a Roman conqueror call Constantine. He declared York was Roman back in AD746. Hows that for age. It continues to astound me that people just like you and me lived worked, laughed and loved all those thousands of years ago. 

York is a nice place, but boy did we notice the cold, it must have been all of five degrees there today, good thing the wind wasn't blowing or it would have felt a good deal colder.

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