The chief fault of this screen is its heaviness, which the mass of ornament is not bold enough in its parts to lighten. The central entrance is not cleverly managed, and seems cut out of the screen, as if to make a way into the choir at all costs. This screen should be compared to the beautiful rood screen at Exeter, with its three bold arches and its simple yet delicate decoration. After the fire in 1829 it was proposed to remove it, and one is almost tempted to regret that it was not removed. The nave at York would be enormously improved by a closer connection with the choir. Under any circumstances the nave must be somewhat cold and ineffective; it would be far less so if the eye could pass with scarcely a break into the sumptuous choir. The naves of English cathedrals are too apt to look like splendid museums rather than places of worship, and this is peculiarly the case with the nave at York. Doctor Milner has stated, though apparently without authority, that this screen was taken from the Abbey Church of St. Mary, close to the cathedral. It is difficult to understand how it could have fitted so much narrower a building.
The choir itself, with the retro-choir or Lady Chapel, is divided into nine bays. It is considerably the largest and loftiest in England, being over 100 feet high and 99 wide. The altar is three bays from the east end, and one bay west of the altar are the eastern transepts. The choir was begun at the east end in 1361, and finished in 1405. There are differences between the earlier work east and the later work west of the transepts, which will be pointed out, though the plan of both is the same.
The plan, allowing for differences in detail caused by the change of style, is very like that of the nave. It is, therefore, an interesting example of a Perpendicular building carried out on the lines of an earlier Decorated design. When the east end of the choir was begun (1361) the Gothic style was fast reaching its fullest development in England. The nave of Winchester, a contemporary building, is the finest example of that development. There, as has been pointed out, the vertical division made by the vaulting shafts and the mouldings on each side of them becomes the most important feature in the design. The window tracery is planned merely as a frame for glass, and not as a design interesting in itself. Decoration supplied in earlier work by carved foliage, deep and various mouldings, and elaborate tracery, gives way to a system of lines emphasising construction as completely as possible. The contrasts between masses of ornament and blank walls, which play so great a part in earlier Gothic, disappear; and the only contrast is between the orderly lines of the stone and the kaleidoscopic decoration of the windows. Architecture loses much of its fancy and its delicacy, but becomes more logical, more reasonable, and more organic.