Plymouth Minster

Plymouth Minster stands in the centre of Plymouth, Devon, on the site of a Saxon church first recorded in the 11th century. The present building, mostly of local limestone and Dartmoor granite, was raised between 1430 and 1490 in the Perpendicular style. Its tower, 41 metres high, was paid for by merchant Thomas Yogge around 1460. The church was badly damaged in the Plymouth Blitz of March 1941 but rebuilt and reconsecrated in 1957. In 2009 it became a Minster Church and remains the focus for civic services in the city. The Minster is worth visiting for its scale and craftsmanship. At 56 metres long and 29 metres wide it is Devon’s largest parish church. The organ, built by Rushworth and Dreaper to designs by George Harry Moreton and William Lloyd Webber, is the largest west of Bristol. After the war the church commissioned John Piper and Patrick Reyntiens to create six new stained-glass windows, one of the most complete cycles by the artists. A wooden sign reading Resurgam, nailed to the door by a headmistress during the Blitz, still marks the entrance. Inside, the nave has two aisles on each side and the chancel one on each side. The north transept holds a Purbeck marble effigy tomb from the earlier church. The west window by Piper and Reyntiens fills the tower with colour. The church keeps a notable collection of 17th-century plate and a chalice of 1590. Outside, the granite buttresses and the tower dominate the skyline near the city centre.