ONE of the region’s great seats of worship has been awarded £500,000 for critically-important conservation and repair work.

The money for York Minster has come from the Government-sponsored First World War Centenary Repairs Fund.

The Dean of York, the Very Reverend Vivienne Faull, said the funding would be a welcome boost to the next phase of repair and restoration already underway at the Minster - the 11 bays of the Quire Aisle on the south side of the cathedral.

Funds will also be directed to the repair of stonework in the Lady Chapel, located directly under the Minster’s Great East Window.

“Cathedrals continue to have a vitally important role in the lives of communities across the country,” she said.

“People come for worship, contemplation and sanctuary, to experience the most exquisite architecture and to sense and measure the immense histories of these buildings against our finite existence.

“This funding acknowledges a shared national responsibility to ensure that our cathedrals will endure for future generations.”

In 2014 and 2015 the First World War Centenary Repairs Fund awarded a total of £300,000 to the Minster for repairs to the stonework and roof of the Camera Cantorum - a two-storey structure dating from 1415, which today houses the Minster shop and provides rehearsal space for the choristers.

Generations of choristers have been trained in the Camera Cantorum including twelve former choristers and an Alto songman who were all killed on active service in the First World War.