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A church for a king
A wooden church was built hurriedly on the site in 627 for the baptism of Edwin, King of Northumbria. Part of the headquarters of the Roman fortress lay beneath the later Minster, and the Undercroft Museum today tells 2,000 years of the site’s history.


Almost 250 years of building
The present building was begun in about 1230 and completed in 1472. The octagonal Chapter House, begun in the 1260s and finished before 1296, has no central column to support its roof, and the Great East Window was glazed between 1405 and 1408 by John Thornton.
Fire and repair
The Minster has been damaged by fire several times: by arson in 1829, by accident in 1840, and on 9 July 1984, when fire struck the south transept. Each time the damage was repaired, and the Minster is now a Grade I listed building and a scheduled monument.

