00:00Hello, I'm Alex McCully and I'm the Director of Works and Precinct here at York Minster.
00:04We're standing on the roof of what will become our Heritage Quad, which is a unique facility
00:09in the heritage sector housing our first year stonemasons and other apprentices and new
00:16workshops for our stonemasons. So we'll have 14 bankers for our stonemasons, welfare and
00:21breakout facilities in the pavilion over there and across here we've got facilities for our
00:26heritage scaffolders, our gardening team and our ancillary office space below here for the team
00:32who run this department. This is built to the highest sustainable standards so this roof,
00:37this zinc roof around us will collect rainwater to flush the loos and water the gardens. The
00:42building's been built to incredibly high low energy standards so the solar panels on the roof
00:48over there will be providing the electricity for the building during the day and running the air
00:53source heat pumps that will be running the underfloor heating system to heat the building
00:57so really low carbon and we're due for completion at the end of August ready for our stone first
01:05year apprentices to move in in September. Today's an incredible milestone for us, a topping off
01:12ceremony is a traditional ceremony when the roof reaches its maximum height so to see the Dean
01:18bless this roof and to reach that milestone is a huge achievement for the whole team because
01:21it's not been an easy build, everybody knows what awful weather we've had for the past
01:2610 months so we're nearly there and there's light at the end of the tunnel and
01:32in a couple of months time the place will be full of the sound of stonemasons working
01:37and our new training centre, our international outreach and knowledge sharing hub will be fully
01:43operational so we're nearly there. Well one of the proudest moments was when I walked along the city
01:48walls a couple of weeks ago and looked down and the team have been working on this from a vision
01:53to plans through the planning application process so we know this on a flat 2D piece of paper to
02:00see it come to life in 3D like this and look down from the city walls into the room below so people
02:06will be able to engage in that heritage craft it's all coming alive so that's really exciting.
02:11Gentlemen, good afternoon.
02:16Welcome to this milestone moment in the ever evolving history of York Minster.
02:25Thank you all for your support that has got us to this day and I'm delighted and excited to
02:33have the honour of offering a prayer of blessing for this building and the work that will happen
02:39in it. The Lord be with you. Gracious God we give you thanks for all the blessings that you give us
02:48and we thank you now for the completion of this building which will mark such a development
02:55in the skills and crafts used to preserve the cathedral and its properties and the links it
03:03will help us build across the globe. We ask you now to bless this building that those who work
03:09here may do everything in their power to glorify your name in all their work. This we ask through
03:16Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Talk amongst yourselves.
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