The York Minster in York, England (also known as The Cathedral & Metropolitcal Church of St. Peter) is one of the finest gothic cathedrals in the world and it is one of Britain’s most treasured buildings.
When work commenced on York Minster’s nave in 1291 the builders probably never envisioned that one day this beautiful cathedral would have a floor of natural turfgrass to enhance its beauty, but that’s what happened recently.
What occasion could possibly persuade the ministry to lay 1,500 square meters of real turfgrass over the cathedral’s floor? For starters, how about a dinner to celebrate Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee, and at the same time, raise money for the cathedral’s renovation fund, the York Minster Fund, for the continued upkeep of the centuries-old structure.
The celebration/fund raiser was a success with more than 900 guests in attendance. So how did they do it? Rather than growing turf from a soil base, the company that provided the turf began the process by covering the cathedral’s floor with rollable plant sheets made from a felt structure formed from recycled British textiles. A team of ten workers extended a layer of plastic upon the floor of the church, then put in place the soil-less turf which transformed the gothic structure’s nave into a green expanse of interior space.