Beverley Minster
Beverley, six miles north of Hull, is the historic capital of the East Riding of Yorkshire and was one of the most important towns in medieval England. It is home to the beautiful Beverley Minster which has the architectural grandeur of a cathedral. Indeed, many English cathedrals are more than overshadowed by Beverley.
The first church, with an attached monastery, was built at Beverley in the seventh century by St John of Beverley, who had trained under St Hild, the Abbess of Whitby. In AD 687 he became the Bishop of Hexham where he is still remembered in the name of the neighbouring parish of ‘St John Lee’ on Hadrian’s Wall.
Later, John became the Bishop of York before returning to Beverley, where he retired and was buried in his church. Later, the Danes destroyed this church but it was rebuilt. Over time the Vikings would extensively settle the area around Beverley, and gave the district its name – the ‘East Riding’.
Beverley church and the tomb of St John are said to have been visited by King Athelstan of Wessex and England in AD 937 to pray for help, before his engagement with the Vikings and Scots at the Battle of Brunanburh. The battle took place at an un-located site. Around forty locations have been suggested for this battle site, with a forerunner being Brombrough in Cheshire, which is very distant from Beverley.
Athelstan’s visit to Beverley was first mentioned by a twelfth century writer and clergyman, William Ketel, who made a compilation of stories and miracles connected to St John of Beverley. The Athelstan connection could be associated with the development of a cult surrounding the saint for the purpose of pilgrimage and should be treated with caution.
In 1037, John of Beverley was canonised as a saint and stories of miracles came to be associated with him, both from during his lifetime and posthumously associated with his shrine. Pilgrims were naturally attracted to Beverley by the reports of these miracles. This brought revenue to the town that supplemented that generated by Beverley’s trades and industries.
In 1138 the saint’s banner was carried with the standards of other Yorkshire saints at the Battle of the Standard near Northallerton in which a northern army raised by Archbishop Thurstan of York engaged with and defeated King David of Scotland.
Sometime after the Norman conquest the church at Beverley was refashioned by the Normans, but their new building was damaged by fire in 1188, a fire which caused extensive destruction throughout the town.
Around 1220, rebuilding of a new minster church began and continued until about 1260. Two further phases of building took place in the following two centuries completed in 1440 and culminating in the magnificent minster we see today.
Inside the minster is an elaborate shrine to the Percy family which was constructed in the fourteenth century. Nearby is a Frid Stool or peace stool, a primitive seat of Anglo-Saxon origin which is similar to one found at Hexham Abbey.
The stool offered sanctuary to criminals similar to the sanctuary offered at Durham Cathedral. Another of the many features of interest within the minster is Beverley’s church organ, a Snetzer organ that is one of the best surviving examples, dating from 1767.
Beverley : the town
Beverley’s name derives from its association with a beaver but a range of early spellings for the second part of the name cause confusion. Its earliest English spelling, recorded in 1150 ends in ‘lic’ (Beoferlic) and is of unknown meaning.
It possibly derives from ‘lecc’, a word for a stream that occurs in the name of Leconfield just north of Beverley. This word also gives rise to the village name of Little Leake alongside the A19 to the north of Thirsk. Later monks and scribes interpreted the Beaver’s ‘Lic’ (‘Beaver’s Stream’) as the Beaver’s ‘Lac’ a (lake) or Beaver’s ‘Ley’ (Beaver’s clearing) from which we get the present name, Beverley.
Incidentally, the name of the town also later became a surname, denoting a person who originated from the town. This surname later evolved into a male Christian name that later still became the familiar female Christian name ‘Beverley’ we now know today.
In the eighth century, the historian Bede, writing about the monastery of St John, referred to Beverley in Latin as ‘monasterii quod uocatur Inderauuda’ demonstrating that Beverley was then called ‘Inderwuda’ meaning ‘Wood of the Men of Deira’. The former Kingdom of Deira was centred upon the Yorkshire Wolds north of the River Humber and along with Bernicia, further to the north, it had evolved into the Kingdom of Northumbria by Bede’s time.
As a town Beverley grew around the minster church at the site of St John of Beverley’s monastery. It received its first town charter in 1129 under Archbishop Thurstan. For much of its medieval history the town was dominated by the Archbishops of York who were lords of the manor, although over time the wealthy Beverley merchants took more control.
Beverley was a place of great importance and wealth in medieval times. Remarkably, in 1377 it was the second largest town by population in the North of England after York, though it was only slightly ahead of Newcastle upon Tyne by a handful of people.
At that time Hull was the fourth largest town in the North of England but was still much smaller than Beverley. In England as a whole, the three largest towns in 1377 were London, followed by York and then by Bristol.
Amongst all the English towns Beverley ranked twelfth for population in the year 1377. Newcastle was thirteenth and Hull 25th. Places such as Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield did not even feature in the top forty most populous places in England.
Following the Reformation, Beverley passed from the Archbishop of York to the Crown and was incorporated as a borough in 1573, during the reign of Elizabeth I.
The best way to approach Beverley is from the north along Molescroft Road via the A1035. After passing through quiet suburbs we meet the older historic outskirts of the town where, passing a brick-bordered wall at Gallows Lane on the right and Bleach Yard to the left we are greeted by a road sign: ‘Welcome to the Historic Town of Beverley’.
From here the main road is flanked on the left by a traffic-free lane called ‘New Walk’ as we head towards the old town. The first point of interest we encounter is Sessions House near the neighbouring police headquarters. It is a grand classical building of 1804-1814, built by James Pigott Pritchett as the Beverley courthouse and is now a health and beauty spa.
Several grand looking houses that exemplify wealth line Molescroft Road and New Walk. Just as the historic northern gateway to the town of Beverley comes into view, the name of the road changes to ‘North Bar Without’.
North Bar Without was a medieval suburb of the town of Beverley and is named from being outside (‘without’) the bar or gateway to Beverley as opposed to being ‘within’. A similar kind of street-naming occurs at Alnwick in Northumberland where we have ‘Bondgate Within’ and ‘Bondgate Without’ on either side of the Hotspur Gate.
Before we take a look at the medieval gateway we should note the timbered black and white building just outside. Dating from the late eighteenth century, this building was remodelled in the 1890s by the Beverley wood carver and cabinet maker James Elwell (father of the painter, Fred Elwell) and features carved mottoes, mythical beasts and heraldic shields.
We now pause and admire the brickwork of the North Bar itself, the northern medieval gateway to the town of Beverley. Constructed in 1409 with 125,000 locally produced bricks, it is one of the most important medieval brick structures in the country. The archway itself is rib vaulted.
Like the bar gateways at York, this is a genuine medieval gateway, complete with battlements and a groove for a portcullis. It was once supported by a drawbridge. Unlike York, Beverley was not surrounded by a defensive stone wall but was instead enclosed by a surrounding ditch supplemented by an earth rampart and likely topped with a palisade.
Sadly, the North Bar is the only surviving medieval bar or gateway in the town of Beverley but there were once four, providing access to the town with each being used to enforce the collection of tolls from merchants entering the town. The other gateways in Beverley were Norwood Bar; Keldgate Bar (the South Bar) and Newbegin Bar.
During the Civil War, King Charles I resided for a time in the North Bar. At that time Beverley was a Royalist town, whereas the governors of neighbouring Hull supported the Parliamentarians and closed its gates to the king. Later, Beverley would be captured by the Parliamentarians and was then subsequently retaken by the Royalist commander, Cavendish, who defeated his Parliamentarian counterpart, Thomas Fairfax.
Either side of the North Bar archway are additional arches for pedestrians that are incorporated into the neighbouring buildings. Passing through the arches we enter the street of North Bar Within that lies inside the heart of the old medieval town.
Here we can once gain admire the gateway and its brickwork after reading a helpful plaque that notes the importance of the structure and what it cost to build (£90, zero shillings and eleven pence).
Looking back at the gateway there are two buildings of interest either side of the gateway. The white painted building on the left is Bar House and the brick building to the right is Bar Chambers which both incorporate pedestrian arches either side of the main arch.
A plaque on Bar House notes that it was once the seventeenth and early eighteenth century town house of an influential Beverley family called the Wartons. It was also the home of the artists Mary Dawson (Holmes) Elwell SWA from 1910 and Frederick William Elwell RA, following their marriage in 1914. They lived here until their deaths in 1952 and 1958.
To the left, a house called North Bar Chambers dating from 1773-1774 was once the home to John Harris Cruger, a New York merchant who resided here with wife Anne De Lancey Cruger. John Harris fought for the Crown as a Battalion Lieutenant Colonel in the American War of Independence.
Before the war (as the plaque upon the wall informs) Cruger and his brother Nicholas educated and employed Alexander Hamilton, a future founding father of the USA.
Heading further into North Bar Within, there are plenty more buildings of interest, many of which are Georgian town houses although St Mary’s Manor, the white rendered building on the east side of the street near St Mary’s Church dates from the early nineteenth century.
Alongside this house is a narrow lane, also on the east side of the street, that is one of several lanes along the course of North Bar Within. This lane, called Coomb’s Yard is described as ‘Leading to the Old Racing Stables’.
Beverley of course has a long association with horse racing but Beverley Racecourse lies over to the west of North Bar Within and can be reached from North Bar ‘Without’ via the York Road heading towards the village of Bishop Burton. This area, to the west of the town was historically Westwood Pastures. Here a grandstand for the racecourse was first built in 1767 when the annual race meetings commenced.
Back in the town, other lanes joining North Bar Within, include Tiger Lane which joins the west side of the street, opposite St Mary’s Manor. This particular lane once known as Charters Lane from a local family came to be known as Tiger Lane around the 1850s and was named from a nearby public house.
Further along and on the same side of the street, we then encounter two more adjoining lanes, the first being Vicar Lane, followed by Waltham Lane.
Across the street opposite this lane near St Mary’s Manor is a rather beautiful and ornate Victorian water pump. It is the only remaining pump of many that once existed in Beverley. Built by Samuel Owens of Whitefriars in London it was installed in the 1860s and restored in 2020 after losing its spout and handle.
Just beyond the pump and opposite Waltham Lane, one of Beverley’s star attractions comes into view. This is the beautiful parish church of St Mary. It is a very grand church and first time visitors to Beverley might be forgiven for mistakenly thinking that this is Beverley Minster.
In fact parts of this church predate the minster and it is impressive in its own right. The architectural historian Nikolaus Pevsner noted its beauty stating: “That St Mary at Beverley is one of the most beautiful parish churches in England is universal knowledge. It also strikes one as a building of the same unity of character, though not uniformity of forms, as the Minster.”
The church traces its origins back to the twelfth century and began life as a chapel that became a parish church in 1269. In truth very little of the Norman period remains and what we see today is mostly of the thirteenth century onwards.
In 1520, part of the church tower collapsed, killing several people and had to be rebuilt. Some further restorations were undertaken in the nineteenth century by the renowned Victorian architects E.W. Pugin and A.W Pugin, which saw the addition of flying buttresses in the south transept in the 1850s.
Alongside the door to a chapel, within the interior of St Mary’s church, is a stone carving of a long-eared, smiling rabbit. It is heading on a pilgrimage, standing upright and carrying a messenger’s bag. It is said to have inspired Lewis Carroll to create the ‘March Hare’ in Alice in Wonderland. In fact there are carvings of all kinds of creatures and characters featured in this church, especially in the wood carvings of the misericords. The church is also remarkable for a painting of forty English kings up to the reign of King Henry VI, on the ceiling.
Opposite the church across North Bar Within to the west, is the Beverley Arms, a large inn of 1794 that has an impressive entrance porch bordered by columns. On the south side of the church, North Bar Within is joined by Hengate, possibly named from the keeping of hens here. The street was first recorded in 1327 but its meaning is uncertain. Further to the east it becomes Norwood
Not quite opposite Hengate but a little to the south, North Bar Without is joined from the west by another narrow lane of character called Wood Lane, while just across the road next to a pub is Wheatsheaf Lane.
Shortly thereafter the street of North Bar Within reaches its southern terminus at the meeting with a market place called ‘Saturday Market’ and an adjoining street called Lairgate.
Lairgate is one of the longest of Beverley’s old streets and means the ‘street leading to a barn’ from an Old English word for a barn coupled with a Norse word ‘gata’ meaning ‘street’.
Like North Bar Within, Lairgate is joined by several lanes and narrow streets, although the first one we immediately encounter on the east side of Lairgate is rather wide and very short. Linking Lairgate to Saturday Market, this lane is simply called ‘Old Waste’.
Further along Lairgate is joined on its west side by a little passageway called Narrow Racket and then a narrow street called Newbegin. Like several places with the slightly different spelling ‘Newbiggin’ and like Newbiggin Street in Richmond this means ‘new building’ and likely signifies the building of a new street.
However, this is a very old ‘new street’ as it was first recorded in 1190 as ‘Niwebigginge’. Indeed, it was already recognised as an ‘old’ street-name by the 1340s, when it was referred to as ‘Alde Newebigging’ which means ‘Old New Building’.
While here in Lairgate, on the subject of lanes and streets we might note there were lots of recorded medieval building and street-names in Beverley that are now long since lost.
Long-forgotten street names included ‘Bakhouslane’ (Bakehouse Lane); ‘Aldegate’ (Old Street); Gilegate (like Durham’s Gilesgate named from a hospital of St Giles); ‘Cokwald Strete’ (Cuckold Street); ‘Briddal Mydding’ (from a midden heap); ‘Tentoure Lane’ (from cloth made by stretching on tenter hooks); ‘Soutermarket’ from shoemakers (like Souter Peth in Durham) and ‘The Bedern’ which like ‘The Bedern’ off Goodramgate in York, means ‘prayer house’.
Further along Lairgate we pass Clayburn Lane, Windmill Walk and Landress Lane as well as a lovely little terrace of four cottages dating from 1862 called Bede Houses. Finally at the end of Lairgate is ‘The Hall’ a prominent house of 1700 built for the Pennyman family that later came to be used as offices.
Now we head back to the other end of Lairgate where it meets Saturday Market and the end of North Bar Within. Saturday Market takes its name, not unexpectedly perhaps, from being the home to a market held on a Saturday. It was recorded as ‘Saterday Market’ in 1557 and ‘Saturday Market Place’ in 1661.
Near the south end of Saturday Market is the prominent market cross dating from 1714. Supported by eight Tuscan style columns, it was the gift of Charles Holtham and Sir Michael Warton.
Towards the middle of Saturday Market is the striking former Corn Exchange building of brick and terracotta dating from 1886 and now home to Brown’s Department store. It is bordered on its east side by a narrow street called Ladygate leading to the church of St Mary (‘Our Lady’).
Across on the opposite side of Saturday Market is the King’s Head public house and between the two is the enticing entrance to Dyer Lane and Swaby’s Yard, with a promise of ‘shopping’.
At its south end, Saturday Market is joined by a street with the peculiar name of Toll Gavel. It was likely the place where the collection of tolls was made for the Archbishop of York, perhaps being the site of a toll booth.
The second part of the name is from the Anglo-Saxon ‘gafol’ which means ‘tribute’ or ‘rent’ but the combination of the two words toll and gavel seems to be unique to Beverley.
Toll Gavel is a relatively long street focused on retail and is pedestrianised. Along the way you will find the Toll Gavel Church, a United Church built as a Methodist Chapel built in 1891.
Nearby, Toll Gavel is joined by Landress Lane that links the street to Lairgate. Surprisingly, this street-name comes from ‘Londiners Street’ (recorded in 1661) and is named from London merchants (‘Londiners’) who held a fair in Beverley.
Towards its south end, Toll Gavel meets with Cross Street and then finally at its terminus it is joined from the north by a street called Walkergate, from which point it becomes Butcher Row.
Cross Street bring us to a place of judgment, namely the old Guildhall and courthouse in neighbouring Register Square. It is a Greek Doric style building of 1832 designed by Charles Mountain. Nearby in Cross Street itself is the large red brick County Hall of the East Riding County Council.
Close by in Champney Road is Beverley Art Gallery, with a particular focus on the work of Frederick Ewell and next to it, the Treasure House, a library, local studies and heritage exhibition centre run by the East Riding County Council that includes a tower from which we can view the town of Beverley.
Back into Toll Gavel, the adjoining Walkergate has a name that means ‘street of the cloth fullers’ from the cloth-treaders or ‘walkers’ who treaded the cloth in the Walker Beck, now channelled beneath the street.
Walkergate is a long street with lots of Georgian houses and heads northwards running roughly parallel to Toll Gavel and Saturday Market to which it is linked by Dyer Lane and Swaby’s Yard.
Southward from its junction with Walkergate, Toll Gavel becomes Butcher Row, where butchers traded in times past, although they also traded in the Saturday Market.
Further along, Butcher Row is joined by Wilbert Lane on its east side and then by Well Lane on its west side at which point it becomes Wednesday Market which is Beverley’s other historic market square.
Well Lane, has one of those helpful information plaques that are found throughout Beverley. It explains that Well Lane was once called ‘Fishmarketmoorgate’ meaning ‘the street leading to the moor past the fish market’. It originally also encompassed the nearby Champney Road.
Given that Saturday Market is named from hosting a market held on a Saturday it will come as no surprise to learn that this was the site for a market held on a Wednesday. Interestingly, St Sampson’s Square in York was historically called ‘Thursday Market’.
‘Wednesday Market’ in Beverley is first recorded in 1467, a record that predates that of the town’s Saturday Market, that is first mentioned in 1577.
Wednesday Market seems to have been the original market but was increasingly encroached upon by permanent shops (a similar thing happened in York). Over time Saturday Market became the main market square.
Medieval Beverley was thriving with tradesmen, merchants and skilled workers. It was a home to three markets and three annual fairs. There were brick works and brick kilns, leather tanners, cloth dyers and fullers and merchants of all kinds.
An inventive town trail exploring Beverley, complete with map and subtle associated sculptures, features a theme of thirty-nine trades and guilds associated with Beverley. They include Butchers’ Lorimers; Fletchers; Hatters; Armourers; Scriveners; Bakers; Printers; Rope Makers; Goldsmiths; Barber Surgeons; Jerkin Makers and Minstrels, to name a few.
Beverley merchants and artisans included a significant community from the Low Countries (Flanders) in what is now Belgium. They are recalled in the street-name Flemingate near Beverley Minster at the south end of the town. Flemingate is still one of Beverley’s old streets and features a half-timbered pub called the Sun Inn.
Flemingate stretches east towards Beverley Beck or ‘the Beck’ as it was historically known. Here the street becomes ‘Beckside’. Beverley Beck is a tributary of the River Hull on the eastern edge of present day Beverley. In medieval times from about the time of Bishop Thurstan, the beck was navigated by barges from the River Hull. Regular maintenance and scouring of the beck was encouraged by the Archbishops of York, most notably Archbishop Giffard (1266-1279) with brick makers, digging for clay, engaged in its scouring.
A medieval suburb developed in the Beckside area with maritime activity also focused on staiths in the nearby Grovehill on the River Hull itself where large vessels would dock. Shipbuilding was carried out in the Beck area of Beverley from at least the 1460s.
In more modern times, an important shipyard was established on the River Hull in the Grovehill Road area in 1884 by Andrew Cochrane that was acquired by a firm called Cook, Welton and Gemmel in 1901. Up to its closure in 1962 this shipyard built around 1,300 ships including tugs, minesweeper and notable trawlers such as the Arctic Corsair that is currently undergoing restoration at Hull.
Flemingate and Beverley Minster itself can be reached from the south end of Wednesday Market by crossing the neighbouring Lord Robert Road and heading southward along either Highgate or Eastgate.
Of the two approaches, Eastgate is dominated by neat modern houses on its east side and is joined by Trinity Lane that leads to Beverley Railway Station. Towards its south end Eastgate connects to Friars Lane. this was the site of Beverley’s Dominican Friary. established in the 1230s. Eastgate also connects to Flemingate and the Minster Yard.
Highgate is a quieter street and includes a Georgian town house that was the childhood home of the famed London-born writer and feminist, Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797). Mary, a pioneer of women’s rights and sometimes regarded as ‘the original suffragette’ lived here with her family and was educated in Beverley.
With its Georgian houses and ‘Monks Walk Inn’ public house, Highgate is an especially pleasing route by which to approach Beverley Minster. It terminates on the north side of the great church in Minster Yard.
Beverley Minster lies at the south end of the medieval town of Beverley. It is bordered on its north and south side by Minster Yard and on its east side by Eastgate. To its west is St John’s Street, a quiet street named from Beverley’s famed saint that looks directly upon the Minster.
At the north end of St John’s Street, a street called Minster Moorgate heads west to connect to Lairgate, while at the south end of the street is Keldgate ‘the street of the well or spring’ (the word ‘keld’ means spring). A little roundabout at the western end of Keldgate at its meeting with Queensgate marks the site of Keldgate Bar, the long-lost ‘South Bar’ gateway into the medieval town of Beverley. A Franciscan friary was once situated just outside the bar.
Around Beverley
Meaux, a few miles to the east of Beverley was the site of Meaux Abbey, founded by the Earl of Albermarle in the twelfth century but virtually nothing remains of the site. At one time the abbey of Meaux owned the land that would later become the location of the town and city of Hull.
A couple of miles to the west of Beverley beyond Beverley racecourse is the pretty village of Bishop Burton which is well worth a visit. It consists of white-washed houses with red roofs and is located in a dip with an extensive duck pond that adds much to its charm. The village was historically the property of the Archbishops of York.
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