LAURA Marling could make a permanent record of her When The Bell Tolls Tour evening performance in the Nave of York Minster.

“We’re actually recording it as this is the big daddy of all the cathedrals on the tour,” said Laura, over a cigarette and a cuppa out the back at the Evil Eye Lounge in Stonegate, in the quiet of an afternoon break after her matinee set in the Minster’s Chapter House on October 21.

“I think we’ll print it up on vinyl and sell it at shows, if all goes to plan, rather than releasing it formally,” she says. Watch this space for further developments.

The Minster was the fifth of ten cathedrals on a tour that was built around the 21-year-old Hampshire folk singer’s third album, A Creature I Don’t Know.

“It was kind of a natural idea to do a cathedral tour because we did a tour of churches when the first album came out and then did a tour of theatres and opera houses, including York, for the second one,” she said.

Laura initially came over as a diffident, shy performer, but has grown into the skills of concert performance and enjoys life on the road.

“I like touring, and waking up outside cathedrals isn’t bad – and the weather has been gorgeous for this tour,” she said. “I also like the idea of people being affected by the environment of a particular concert because I think of music as an event.”

How has the cathedral experience differed from performing concert hall or festival shows?

“I think the audiences may have felt unsure how to behave so I’ve felt quite a responsibility to behave,” she said. “I do think that people have felt that way, so it’s felt more like a classical concert in that way. It’s like an amazingly strange but beautiful atmosphere.”

York was all the more memorable for Laura on account of her solo matinee performance earlier in the day in the wonderful acoustic of the Chapter House. “It was amazing, and I was even able to a couple of songs off-mike. I did Rambling Man and a new song called…”

The title escaped her. “It’s very new,” she said, apologetically, and come the evening show it still went by without a title.

She has found singing in cathedrals to be exhilarating.

“On the one hand, it’s very practical as you have to make everything a lot more sparse because of the cello and the reverberation, but just by chance, emotionally I like to have the microphone high because I get a better tone out of my voice and it’s amazing singing into the rafters,” she said.

Nevertheless, the concerts had been challenging.

“We rehearsed all the songs in heavy and light versions and are just doing the light versions because the acoustics can’t cope,” said Laura. “Cathedrals weren’t built for this form of music but for Gregorian chants. I slightly wish I had known that – but I’ve never felt so English as when I’m singing in a church as the light goes down.”

Laura says she is not religious but “I’ve always been very aware of how evocative it feels being in a church when everyone is singing”. “That’s so powerful and is a religious experience in itself,” she said.

“Singing my songs in church has made me more aware of the lyrics that I sing, and though I’m in no way anti-religious, I think I’m slightly obsessed with faith. Basically every song I’ve written is about our capability to have faith and how that can lead to both good and bad things. It’s pretty much my great unanswered question.”

Cathedral tour over, Laura can revert to her most natural state: “just me in the kitchen with a guitar in my hands”.