A Tour of Southwell Minster - Part 1

Romanesque arches, an angel window and anglo-saxon fragments

Now I love God, I love churches, I just about tolerate people but I have zero tolerance for needless bureaucracy. My ideal church is in the middle of nowhere, beautiful and beautifully quiet (ideally empty). Major churches are often beautiful but not always quiet and usually full of people. So touring a large and famous ancient church can be somewhat challenging for me. Southwell (pronounced Suthel) Minster is a beautiful church with lots of nice things to see so I’m going to take you on a tour, following my footsteps and hopefully relaying my enjoyment/appreciation (yay!), frustrations (boo!) and something of the history of this ancient church.

Southwell is a small country town in Nottinghamshire and you approach it by small, windy roads, which then process through the town until, if you follow the signs, they deposit you at the major car park which happens to be close to the Minster.

The earliest record goes back to 956, when the land was granted to the Archbishop of York.¹ The next record is of bells being given in 1020. It was described as a “monasterium” (later corrupted to Minster) but was never actually monastic but housed secular canons. There was a church here before the Norman rebuild, and as you can see, it is placed on a small hill, as many churches are. The photo above is taken from the car park, which is a hill opposite.