TripAdvisor Award For Beverley Minster

Beverley Minster has received a 2014 Certificate of Excellence from the travel firm TripAdvisor for consistently earning outstanding feedback from visitors who comment on its website. The church is the most visited tourist attraction in the town.

TripAdvisors Reviewers Fall For The Charms Of The Minster

Of the 251 TripAdvisor reviewers who posted feedback, 97 per cent said their visit had been very good or excellent, with praise being given to the building, the roof tours, the shop and the general welcome.

One person noted that "The minster has a lovely shop and café. The tour of the rafters and the view from the opening in the ceiling was quite remarkable. The staff and volunteers clearly love their minster and are always excited to have visitors see this remarkable feat of building.

The Vicar, the Reverend Jeremy Fletcher, said: "The Minster is staffed by dozens and dozens of volunteers, all giving their time because they love what they do. They are inspired to work in this beautiful building and this award shows that the warmth they bring to their work is very much appreciated by the thousands of people they greet every year.

"Beverley Minster is a truly outstanding building and it is a privilege for all of us to be able to show it off to visitors from near and far. This award means a lot, because it means that those visitors are saying 'thank you' to them all – as do I."

About 55,000 people visit the landmark building each year. Minster verger Neil Pickford, who conducts tours at the church, said: "We are the biggest free attraction in the East Riding.
"We get visitors from across the world, as well as from around the UK. We have 16 different language leaflets, including Japanese, Chinese and Russian, so we are catering for a truly international audience. It is truly astonishing that this 800-year-old building can hold comparison with almost every other part of the world."

Mr Pickford said daily visitors were impressed by the sheer scale and beauty of Beverley Minster. He said: "People's mouths drop open when they see the size of the church. They are incredibly impressed by the way it has been put together, as it looks so majestic. It's not just a huge space – the design moves people. It's the scale and beauty of it."

The minster is a major tourist attraction for the town. Mr Pickford said: "There are a lot of people who come to the town because they have seen or heard about the minster. They come to Beverley on the strength of what they have heard about the minster. It's the first thing about Beverley most people will have heard of, but they don't just come to see us, they come for the whole town."

The minster offers tours inside the church roof spaces twice a day, normally at 11.15am and 2.15pm, involving a steep climb up several hundred spiral steps.

Mr Pickford said: "It's a unique glimpse inside the structure of a major Gothic building. It's really nice that people single out the roof tours as a highlight."