You're a Good Man, Robert Vavasour

You're a Good Man, Robert Vavasour

Simon Rogerson

January 11, 2024

York Minster is a big old beast that didn't cost peanuts to build. If you're wondering where that money come from then a quick wander around the building gives an idea as to how at least some of the finances were raised. Painted in the windows and on stone shields attached to the walls there are the coat of arms of all the people and families who made major contributions to the building funds. All of the big Yorkshire landowning families are of course represented such as the Ros family of Helmsley, the Warrenes who were owners of Conisbrough Castle and the Percy family who owned...well pretty much everywhere. Some of the other families represented with coats of arms don't have as clear a link to the area but were obviously hedging their bets and spreading their donations across the country in an attempt to keep everyone happy.

One particular family crest that really caught my attention as I looked around is a gold shield with black zigzags going across it. It looks like Charlie Brown's jumper. I won't lie, it's that detail that made me take notice.

Two of the Vavasour court of arms in the nave of York Minster

Whoever this family was they were clearly important, with their coat of arms appearing on three shields in the nave alone as well as being found in windows and shields elsewhere in the building. A small bit of research confirms that this coat of arms was for the Vavasour family.  A name which turns out to be a fantastically satisfying word to say out loud. Go on, say it now. Vavasour. See, I told you. This also adds another lovely detail to those Charlie Brown style zigzags as they could now be read as a series of Vs and As.

Vavasour itself appears to have begun as more of a description than an actual name. In the Norman Feudal System a vasour held land in lieu of the king (there is an obvious similarity to the word vassal). This makes a vavasour someone who is one rung further down on the feudal ladder, who holds land in lieu of someone who owns land in lieu of the king. In the Domesday Book in 1086 there is record of one Sir Mauger the Vavasour holding land and having a house at where there is now Hazlewood Castle near to Tadcaster. In this case Sir Mauger was a sub vassal of the all powerful Percy family, who had come over with the Normans and were sometimes called the King's of the North. 

The Vavasours remained living at Hazlewood until they finally sold up in 1908. Which goes to prove that if you have land in this country it can set you up not just for a lifetime but for the best part of a millennium. For more on that subject why not visit the luxuriant Alnwick castle and speak to the Duke of Northumberland, or Ralph Percy as he also known.

Nowadays Hazelwood Castle markets itself as a grand wedding venue, as anyone who has travelled down the A64 and seen their adverts can readily testify.

The former small country pile of the Vavasour family (from www.hazelwood-castle.co.uk)

So how does a Tadcaster landowner make money? Well to answer that we can go back Roman Tadcaster or Calcuria as it was called then. As that name suggests, limestone is abundant in the area. To be specific the town is on a seam of magnesium limestone that runs down Yorkshire, roughly following the line of the A1. From Tadcaster you could put your quarried stone on barges on the River Wharf and sail down to Cawood before joining the River Ouse. Then, if you judge the tides correctly, you could nip up into the centre of York in no time. As such everything that we think of as Mediaeval York; the churches, the castle, the city walls and of course York Minster have a significant amount of Tadcaster magnesium limestone in them. This situation lasted for hundreds of years but by the 19th Century new modes of transport meant that you could quarry the stone wherever was cheapest then build a canal or even a railway to take it where you need it. 

As such, the 19th century rebuilding works of churches in York including The Minster were done with different types of limestone from different parts of the country. And there begins the problem. The magnesium limestone might have originally been chosen for it's convenience but by chance it turns out to be amazingly resilient to weathering caused by rainfall. The repair work on The Minster is a never ending job but a lot of the work is not actually replacing battered mediaeval stonework but instead replacing the 19th Century repair work that has become too weathered since then. Replacing it with magnesium limestone. From Tadcaster. I've massively simplified all that of course. For a better description why not join one of our Earth Walks with proper geologist Dr Liam Herringshaw.

So the Vavasours might have been useful to the Dean and Chapter of The Minster in the Middle Ages. Indeed in the early 13th Century it is recorded that Robert Vavasour granted The Minster free passage to his Thevesdale Quarry near to Hazelwood. Of course that is free passage as opposed to free stone although there may have been grants of stone to The Minster as well. However, during the 250 year long project to rebuild The Minster in the gothic style that started in the 13th Century, having been granted the equivalent of free postage and packaging on all of your stone would have been very useful. Very useful indeed.

The current stonemasons at York Minster get their magnesium limestone from a quarry near Tadcaster called Jackdaw Quarry. However it is quite possible that Jackdaw Quarry sits on, or near to, the same land where Robert Vavasour's Thevesdale Quarry was found in the 13th Century. 

So the Vavasour coat of arms was plastered all over the interior of York Minster in gratitude. But that wasn't all. It was recorded that a statue of Robert Vavasour was placed by the west door of The Minster in gratitude of his help with the building project. Now, the west end of The Minster has been completely rebuilt since then (and gone through The Reformation) but intriguingly there are still three statues by the west door. One statue is of a bishop (probably Archbishop William Melton who commissioned that particular phase of building work) but another one of the statues is holding a block of stone. Wouldn't you know it besides this statue is the tell tale zigzag coat of arms confirming this man is a Vavasour. Quite when the statue was carved and installed and whether it is the original statue of Robert Vavasour from the 13th Century is not entirely clear but either way it makes an intriguing story and shows just how important the family was to the church. The third statue? Well it was recorded that as well as the statue of Robert Vavasour there was also one installed of his overlord William Percy and there by the third figure today there is a coat of arms containing the Percy lion. The statue of William Percy was installed in honour of him...well owning a lot of land I guess.