It is one of the largest parish churches in the UK, larger than one-third of all English cathedrals and is regarded as a Gothic masterpiece.

[4] The archbishops of York, the lords of Beverley throughout the Middle Ages, secured grants for four annual fairs which enhanced the town's trading role.

Archbishop Kynesige (1051–60) added a high stone tower; his successor Ealdred (1060–69) expanded the church with a new presbytery.

Henry III granted 40 oaks from Sherwood Forest in 1252, and by c. 1260 the retrochoir, choir, chapter house, transepts, and crossing were complete.

[6] Filled with light, overwhelmingly tall and spacious, and speaking to the increasing skills of the stonecarvers, this new work was radically different from the old Saxon and Norman structure it replaced.

It was the product of the novel structural systems and artistic development that together define the Gothic style, originating in France and brought to England in the late 12th century.

Of this Early Gothic building campaign, only the chapter house has been lost, although its wonderful staircase survives in the north choir aisle.

[8] A new shrine for St John was ordered from Roger de Faringdon of London in 1292,[9] to which the saint's remains were translated on 25 October 1307.

[12] The great east window (bequeathed in 1416 as previously mentioned), a chapel funded by the Percys (c. 1490, in the extreme northeast corner of the church), and the choir stalls (c. 1520) were the only major later work.

Church authorities cracked down hard on those they felt were part of the "Popish" conspiracy contrary to royal decrees.

Both Levets were suspended from the priesthood for keeping prohibited equipment and books and when restored were ordered not to minister in Beverley or its neighbourhood.

William Thornton of York, one of the supervisors of the project, devised an ingenious method of levering the wall back into place and securing it with a great wooden frame.

The chimes for each quarter are rung on the 10 bells in the north-west tower and the melody was composed by organist John Camidge.

Features of the interior include shafts of Purbeck Marble, stiff-leaf carving and the tomb of Lady Eleanor Percy, dating from around 1340 and covered with a richly decorated canopy, regarded by F. H. Crossley as one of the best surviving examples of Gothic art.

[19] A total of 68 16th-century misericords are located in the quire of the minster, and nearby is a sanctuary or frith stool dating back to Anglo-Saxon times.

Improvements to the choir were made during the 16th and 18th centuries, and medieval glass, which was shattered by a storm in 1608, was meticulously collected and installed in the east window in 1725.

is the subject of a poetical illustration by Letitia Elizabeth Landon to a picture by Nathaniel Whittock published in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836.