Looking at Beverley Minster

I've been using this picture of the main West Door of Beverley Minster as my desktop background this month:

West Door of Beverley Minster, September, 1984, Blomme/McClure

It has prompted me to look back at the pictures that we took of the Minster when we visited Beverley on a driving trip through England in September of 1984.  Beverley is in the East Yorkshire Downs, between York and Hull (where we caught the overnight ferry for Belgium).

The door and surrounds in the photo are part of the West Front ensemble done in English Perpendicular Gothic.  It was probably completed around 1420 during the final phase of the rebuilding of the church that started 200 years earlier in 1220.  The tower over the crossing of an earlier church had collapsed around 1213 destroying most of the earlier building.  The entire building was rebuilt in three different Gothic styles which came into fashion in England over the two centuries it took to complete the new building: Early, Decorated, and Perpendicular.

Here are our two more pictures we took of the West Front: 

Beverley Minster, Central Section of West Front, 9/1984, Blomme/McClure

West Front of Beverley Minster from the SE, 9/1984, Blomme/McClure

It is believed to be the inspiration for the West Front of Westminster Abbey in London.

What is a minster?  It's an English term for a major church that is not the seat of an archbishop or a bishop, which would usually make it a 'cathedral' (but not always).  It's bigger and more important than a 'parish church'.

Beverley is pronounced 'BEE-vur-lee' by the English.