Stained glass from York Minster's Great East Window undamaged after blaze (From York Press)

Stained glass from York Minster's Great East Window undamaged after blaze

8:41am Tuesday 5th January 2010

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INVESTIGATIONS have revealed that York Minster’s priceless Great East Window has escaped unharmed from last week’s dramatic fire scare.

A dozen staff have been working round the clock to move the medieval glass to St Stephen’s Chapel in the Minster, following the blaze at the cathedral’s stoneyard.

More than 300 panes, which were rescued from the fire, had been left propped up in workshops in the stoneyard and the Minster School.

Sarah Brown, head of the York Glaziers Trust, said: “We have been working flat out to get all the glass moved to new storage at its temporary home to the cathedral’s St Stephen’s Chapel where it will be closely monitored by the Minster police.

“We have yet to encounter any damage whatsoever to the panels which is a testament to the firefighters who had to move extremely quickly to move the glass in the dark.

“We are confident that it will all be moved out of the workshops and the Minster School by first thing this morning.

“Thankfully, the sun was shining as we were moving the glass and we had the route carefully gritted to move all the panels safely.

“The fire and moving the glass has been a distraction, but will not affect or delay the restoration of the Great East Window."

She said the building’s structure was mostly affected by smoke damage and the Minster’s insurance company was working to assess any financial implications. As The Press reported at the time, more than 30 firefighters led a frantic battle to douse flames at the stoneyard where experts had been working on a £27 million project to restore the 600-year-old window.

Fire chiefs are still working to determine the exact cause of the fire – believed to have started accidentally because of an electrical wiring fault in one of the sockets in an office on the first floor of the building.

Dave McCabe, of North Yorkshire Fire & Rescue Service, said: “There is a lot of debris to sort through and people to talk to before we can determine the cause of the fire.

“Investigations are continuing.”

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