Beverley Minster

Went to Beverley, East Yorkshire UK over the weekend. It is the best kept secret in the UK - a beautiful town with heaps of history and architecture. The Minster is remarkable and has wonderful examples of the Early English and Decorated periods of Gothic. The photo I took above (click for larger) is of the Nave looking eastwards which took 40 years to build in the C14th and is from the Decorated period.

Whilst I was there I came across a man who was curiously looking at bits of stone work with his torch and marking information down on a piece of paper. I guessed he might be looking for stone masons marks and I was right (examples at Rosslyn). Stone Masons marks are cuts in stone by the mason during erection as a record of what work he has completed.

The gentleman with the torch kindly showed me a few which were over 700 years old. The most remarkable one being a full signature of a surname (Maldon or Morton I think). By recording all the marks in the Minster they hope to see if there was any pattern in construction which might throw light on the construction sequence of events.