Rising above the medieval streets of York, the Minster is the seat of the Archbishop of York and the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. Its walls hold the greatest concentration of medieval stained glass in England.
The first church on the site was a small wooden oratory built in 627 for the baptism of King Edwin of Northumbria. From that beginning grew the northern province of the English Church, second only to Canterbury.
The present cathedral was raised over two and a half centuries, from about 1220 to 1472, its builders working through Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular Gothic without ever losing the grandeur of the whole.
The Minster is celebrated for its glass: the Great East Window, the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the country, and the Five Sisters window of grisaille lancets, together with a chapter house of remarkable width.