Four Parish Churches

Today we toured and studied the glass in four of York's nineteen parish churches.  This put is in pretty close touch with glass from York's two great stained glass periods, 1330-40 and 1410-50.  There was a great deal of work being done on the Minster at those times, so there must have been large workshops in the city ready to improve the parish churches.  There were also a lot of people around who had the means to donate the needed funds.

Falling Angels at Spurriergate Centre

Two nicely contrasting churches are Saint Michael's, Spurriergate, now the Spurriergate Centre, comprising a sort of counseling center and informal tea and coffee shop, and All Saints North Street, very much still an active, formal church.  At Saint Michael's, we sat and had a cup of tea and some cake while we admired the windows, including the one at the right here, showing the fall of Lucifer.

In All Saints North Street, we took time in the chancel to observe the fine painted angels sculpted into the C15 hammer-beam roof.  Angels who have managed not to fall in 600 years, through the Reformation, and through fire.  Angels playing instruments, angels bearing souls into heaven, angels swinging censors.

The fire that blackened but did not burn the angels in the roof did in fact destroy the choir screen of the chancel.  It was replaced by a beautifully carved Gothic screen in 1906.  There's a long tradition of keeping the decorations in churches consistent: back in Saint Michael's Spurriergate, new arches were added to the C12 arcade in C14, but carved in C12 style.

Class in the chancel of All Saints North Street