York Minster, York, UK
Securing the future of one of the world’s finest medieval cathedrals
Arup’s structural surveys of York’s famous Minster highlighted severe concerns, particularly around large cracks in the tower. We found that the walls of an earlier Norman nave, buried beneath the four main crossing piers, were breaking and distorting. This was leading to uneven settlement between the four corners of the tower above.
We designed a scheme to excavate around the pier footings and enlarge them, encasing the Norman walls within wider, more stable foundations. This involved several innovative techniques, including inflatable ‘flatjacks’ and 16m-long drilled cores, to bind together and load a composite structure of stone and concrete. The footings of the Minster’s east and west ends were also extended using similar techniques, and steel ties added to the tower and across the Great East Window.
Decades later, after the Minster was struck by lightning and the south transept roof destroyed by fire, we designed a replacement roof. This involved sourcing particular trees from estates around the UK, and designing innovative bolted connections to allow the timber of the trusses to dry out and ‘season’ in situ.
