As you look to your right, you will see one of the many beautiful stone structures that make this city so special. We just left the Merchant Adventurers' Hall a few minutes ago, where we talked about the busy world of medieval trade, but now I want to share a much quieter side of York with you.
In the year thirteen hundred, York was a city reaching toward the sky. There were around forty-five parish churches crowded into these compact, winding streets. Today, twenty of those medieval churches survive in whole or in part. That is a magnificent number, surpassed in all of England only by the city of Norwich. Twelve of them are even still used for worship today.
Each of these surviving buildings holds such intimate, human stories. Take Holy Trinity on Goodramgate, for example. It sits completely secluded behind rows of old buildings, and you have to walk down very narrow alleyways just to find it. Inside, it is dark, quiet, and wonderfully homely. The stone floors are completely uneven from centuries of footsteps. It is filled with high box pews. Those are tall, enclosed wooden seating areas with little doors, designed to keep families together and protect them from cold drafts during long services. Above the altar, there is a glowing piece of stained glass donated by a rector, or senior parish priest, named John Walker back in fourteen seventy.
Then there is All Saints on North Street. It is famous for a stained glass window called the Prick of Conscience, which dramatically illustrates the fifteen signs of the End of the World. But what I find most deeply moving is a small space attached to the west end of the building. It is the site of a former anchorhold. An anchorhold was a tiny, enclosed room where a religious hermit chose to be permanently walled inside. A person actually lived their entire life in that tiny space, dedicating every waking moment to prayer, watching the years go by through a single narrow slit in the heavy stone.
Sadly, not every church made it to the modern day. Saint Crux was once the largest medieval parish church in York. But by the eighteen eighties, the massive building had become structurally unsafe. The community tried desperately to raise enough money to repair and save it, but they fell short. The grand church was completely demolished in eighteen eighty-seven. But the story does not end there. The people gathered up the stonework and used those very same stones to build a small parish hall at the bottom of the Shambles. Even in loss, the city found a way to hold onto its memory.
These quiet sanctuaries hold the prayers, the fears, and the hopes of countless ordinary people. Take a moment to reflect on these quiet sanctuaries, and let's make our way toward the Grand Opera House.
