'
On entering the city we passed St. Mary's, a beautiful Perpendicular
church which is not eclipsed even by the major attractions of the
Minster. At the west end there is a splendid Perpendicular window
flanked by octagonal buttresses of a slightly earlier date, which are
run up to a considerable height above the roof of the nave, the upper
portions being made light and graceful, with an opening on each face,
and a pierced parapet. The tower rises above the crossing, and is
crowned by sixteen pinnacles.
In its general appearance the large south porch is Perpendicular, like
the greater part of the church, but the inner portion of its arch is
Norman, and the outer is Early English. One of the pillars of the nave
is ornamented just below the capital with five quaint little minstrels
carved in stone. Each is supported by a bold bracket, and each is
painted. The musical instruments are all much battered, but it can be
seen that the centre figure, who is dressed as an alderman, had a harp,
and the others a pipe, a lute, a drum, and a violin. From Saxon times
there had existed in Beverley a guild of minstrels, a prosperous
fraternity bound by regulations, which Poulson gives at length in his
monumental work on Beverley.
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