York Minster

York Minster tickets: which one to buy

One ticket covers the minster, the undercroft museum and the chapter house, and it is valid for twelve months, which is unusual and generous. Adding the central tower costs a little more and means 275 steps up a spiral to the roof at 70 metres, in timed groups, with no lift and a strict minimum age. York residents enter free on proof of address. Free guided tours led by volunteers run through the day and are included; they are excellent and make a paid guide unnecessary.

Attending a service costs nothing, and Evensong, sung by the minster choir on most days in term, is the cheapest way to hear the building. Combined tickets with the city walls or the Jorvik Viking Centre are sold by third parties and rarely save money. Booking online is quicker at the door but the queue is seldom long outside the summer peak. Entry to the chapter house alone is not sold; it is part of the main ticket and is often missed because the door is easy to walk past.

Visiting York Minster: what to see

A wooden church stood here in 627 for the baptism of King Edwin of Northumbria; the present building went up between 1220 and 1472 and is the largest Gothic cathedral in northern Europe. Each part belongs to a different century, and the joins are visible: Early English transepts, a Decorated nave, a Perpendicular east end and tower. What makes York exceptional is the glass. About half of all surviving medieval stained glass in England is in this building.

The Great East Window, completed in 1408, is the size of a tennis court and the largest expanse of medieval glass anywhere, showing the beginning and end of the world. The Five Sisters in the north transept are five grey lancets over sixteen metres high, filled with grisaille of about 1260. Below, the undercroft museum displays the Roman barracks and Norman foundations found when the tower was underpinned in the 1960s. The chapter house is octagonal and has no central column, the only English chapter house built that way, with a wooden vault carrying the load outwards.

York Minster opening hours and the best time to go

Open to visitors Monday to Saturday from mid-morning to mid-afternoon and on Sunday afternoons, with services taking priority and the minster closing to sightseeing during them. The tower climb runs in fixed slots and stops in high wind. Mornings are quieter than afternoons; York is crowded from June to September and during the Christmas market in December. The nave is unheated and cold in winter.

Photography without flash is allowed except during services. Allow ninety minutes inside, two and a half hours with the tower. The medieval city walls pass close to the minster and the walk along them gives the best exterior views, particularly from Bootham Bar in the late afternoon. The minster's Christmas services and the York Early Music Festival in July both fill the building and are worth building a visit around.