you've probably seen it but never thought to question who put it there. ...#yorkhiddengems #york

Added: 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]There's this here. No, not the minster.

[00:00:02]This this octagonal stone construction around a tree in Dean Park right outside the minster.

[00:00:12]The craftsmanship here is brilliant.

[00:00:14]It's amazing. And I feel like when you see something like this, it's quite artistic and quite complex. You always got to ask who put this here, why? What do they want us to know?

[00:00:25]What was the reason behind it? And who paid for it as well? So this was built in the year 2000 at the York Minster Stone Festival. And the really amazing thing about this is that it was created by 70 highly skilled stone carvers from around the UK and Europe. And they built the whole thing together in two days.

[00:00:43]And the amazing thing about building something like this with 70 creative minds working on it at the same time is that there is no single theme. It's covered in a multitude of grotesque, strange, whimsical, sometimes a little bit scary faces. And some of them look like traditional 13th century church carvings while others have a more modern cartoonish feel. And as you look closely, you can sort of see the unique signature style of each individual mason. It's all made completely out of magnesium limestone, which is the same stone the minster is made out of. And it was constructed around this sycamore tree to symbolize the partnership between the living nature of the park and York and the unmoving stone of Yorkminster. And you can see they've carefully left plenty of space around the tree for it to continue growing and thriving inside this beautiful octagonal stone bench. If you enjoy finding all these hidden little details around York, all these secret little places you never knew about, check out the York quests.

[00:01:39]There these fantastic treasure hunt games around the city. The link's in my bio. Check it out.