York Minster goes all green with carpet of grass

The iconic York Minster has seen many changes of the centuries including a royal wedding, a devsastating fire and quite a few internal alterations, but if you go down to the Minster today you might be in for a bigger surprise – the whole floor has turned green!

As part of the 2012 Jubliee Celebrations, York Minster has laid a carpet of grass – real living grass that even needs watering and mowing. The carpet laying started on Wednesday in readyness for the Diamond Jublilee dinner tonight.

Over 1500 square metres of grass was required to cover the main nave of the minster and it was all laid in around 6 hours which must be some kindof record. Under the grass is a layer of plastic to protect the ancient stonework, and presumably make the cleanup operation a little easier, but beyond that it is essentially the same process as laying turf on a football pitch or your back garden.

To keep in with the green theme, the grass grows in a felt base made of recycled textiles rather than soil which makes it more eco-friendly and a little cleaner too. Known as “Wow Grass“, the process which has now been patented, all takes place in North Yorkshire not too far from York Minster, although it takes over a year for the grass to grow to the specified height.

Now 900 guests can dine out with the warmth and comfort of real grass rather than bland cold stone.

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