York

For the majority of this trip, I discovered with great disappointment that most buildings have been changed again and again from their original state. I found these alterations in the structures also distorted my perception of how each place would have functioned in their representative time periods. Seeing the whitewashed walls of King’s Chapel in Cambridge, the Victorian rooms within Warwick, and the bombed out remains of Coventry gave me thought that our predecessors had less value on historical significance than we do now; I felt bitter that I wasn’t seeing anything authentic. All of these notions were completely dispelled with our visit to York Minster this Wednesday.
I was standing underneath the York Minster, reading a plaque that said on my left was a Norman wall and on the right a medieval one, when I came to a new conclusion. The layers of earth from different historical periods—Roman, Norman, and Medieval—made me view the changes of York Minster and other buildings as more necessary and cohesive than obtrusive and mean. The first conquest of what is now Britain was by the Romans, who built a fort at this location. After they left, the Normans invaded in 1066, fought their way north, and established their religious building here shortly thereafter. Eventually it was transformed into the larger medieval cathedral that is York Minster as we seen it today. As each new settler came in, they demolished old buildings and built theirs literally on top of the ruins. There was no reason, at the time, why they shouldn’t—it was a prime location with foundations already laid. Looking down a well that showed the different layers, I might as well have been looking in a time capsule; yet, I realized that buildings in themselves do not have a “time period.” True, they were produced in a certain era and a certain style, but as they are affected and redesigned by changing cultural ideals, they represent the passage of time from their creation to the present. After we have made our own marks on history, our structures will be left behind for future generations to appreciate and alter.