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The clergymen who run the Minster can rightly claim they've dedicated their lives to serving God. In many ways the masons and glaziers who maintain the Minster show the same level of dedication, only their dedication is to the cathedral itself. For many of them, the job of caring for York Minster has become a lifetimes work.

"It's a very special job" says head carver Geoff Butler. He knows exactly where on the Minster every stone he has worked on has been used. "I'm making my mark" he says.

Geoff Butler

"To create something from a square block and see it go up there and you know it is going to be up there for hundreds of years, there's a special thing about it."

At times, work on the Minster can seem to move at a snails pace. The project to restore the stonework of the East Front could take 10 years, whilst work on the Great East Window could take even longer - possibly up to 15 years.

It's not that the people involved are dragging their feet, it is simply that the work takes a long time to complete.

Replacements for some of the highly decorative pieces of stone that have been affected by weathering can take five or six months to create. Similarly, individual panels of stained class contain hundreds, if not thousands, of pieces of glass. Every panel has to be taken apart and each pieces of glass assessed to see whether it needs replacing.

Copyright: Dean and Chapter of York

If it does, the process of creating a new piece is long and complex. The colours of medieval glass are hard to match and differences in tone are often subtle. After cutting, each new piece is painted and washed to match the tone/texture of the medieval glass. It's then fired in a kiln.

You can perhaps see now why the restoration work takes so long!

New pieces of magnesium limestone arrive at the Minster Stoneyard direct from the quarry, rough hewn square blocks which are ready to cut. Almost as soon as they arrive they are given a reference number, a job mark, which identifies exactly how each one will be used and where on the Minster it is going to go.

Mechanical saws are used to cut the blocks to approximately the right size. A profiling saw is then used to cut the stone into roughly the right shape. These saws can only cut in straight lines, so all the finishing work must be done by hand.

Paul Deamer

The air inside the mason's shop is filled with dust. The tap, tap, tapping of hammer on chisel is virtually incessant. The masons work to zinc patterns and use photos of both the original pieces of stone and the part of the Minster where it will be used. These help them visualise what the stone needs to look like.

Paul Deamer has been part of the team of masons since the mid-1970s. He describes the stone he was working on as "fairly complex". He began work on it in the summer and reckoned he'd be lucky to get it finished much before Christmas - a total of around 20 weeks (five months) to complete one stone.

Head carver, Geoff Butler, has been working at the Minster Stoneyard for more than 40 years. He arrived in the mid-1960s, a part-trained mason looking for somewhere he could finish his apprenticeship.

The stone Paul Deamer is working on

Carvers are responsible for all the 'decorative' work on the Minster, creating features like gargoyles and grotesques "it's the arty type of the work, where as masons will do the geometric patterns, tracery, mouldings, that sort of thing".
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He's enormously proud of the job he's been given to do. The stone he is working on here is a grotesque, a winged beast which is destined for the south-east buttress of the East Front. It will take "months" to create. He's been working on it for around four months and has at least a further two to three weeks more work to do.

When finished it will be 40-45 feet off the ground at a point where two niches meet. The grotesque will come out of the corner at a听45 degree angle. It has no other purpose apart from being decorative.

Close up of Geoff Butler's grotesque

The carvings he makes come entirely from his own imagination. Geoff says he takes his inspiration from the Minster and听researches each piece by looking at what is being replaced, looking at other carvings on the building and what is in the area nearby.

His records of the pieces he has worked on - photos, drawings etc - will be handed on to his family, who are also enormously proud of what he does.

"I'm making my mark. It's quite a privilege really, a privileged position!"