A SCREEN DREAM FOR MINSTER
Mobile app offering US visitors virtual reality tour
THERE COULD hardly be a better guide for American visitors to York Minster than the choirboy to whom it owes its continued existence.
It was on a morning in February 1829 that Robert Swinbank, on his way to sing, slipped on a patch of ice in the Minster yard, and from his prone position looked up to see black clouds of smoke pouring from the roof.
The church had been burning all night, but it was the young Swinbank’s raising of the alarm that summoned horse-drawn fire engines to eventually put it out.
His story is well documented, but it has taken 21st century technology to bring it to life for a new generation of tourists.
Swinbank is the “host” of an augmented reality app launched yesterday and targeted at young visitors from America. Once installed on their phones, the app reacts to trigger points around the Minster, which then cue another episode from its history.
Specially shot video footage, including a 360 degree view of the octagonal, vaulted Chapter House roof, allows virtual access to parts of the building that would otherwise be hidden.
“We learned from research that users prefer a real person to guide them,” said Michelle Brown, the marketing manager for Visit York, one of the organisations behind the project.
“It has an international focus and we’ve aimed it at a much younger audience.”
Swinbank, through whose eyes the stories are told, had been the hero of the hour when Jonathan Martin, newly escaped from an asylum in London, travelled to York on what he would claim was a mission from God to cleanse the Minster of wickedness.
Hiding behind a tomb during Evensong, he made his way into the Bell Chamber, from where he climbed up a bell rope into the choir and made piles of anything he thought would burn.
By the time Swinbank alerted the authorities, the building was well alight and the choir lost. Even then, it took many hours before all the fire crews arrived – some from as far away as Leeds. It was reported that one appliance lost a wheel en route, another overturned and a third halted when one of its horses fell dead. We learned from research that users prefer a real person to guide them. Michelle Brown, marketing manager for Visit York.
Martin escaped after setting the fire, but had sent warning letters containing his initials and an address in London. A month later he was tried and convicted, but spared the rope on account of insanity, and taken back to the asylum, where he died nine years later.
The augmented reality app, which includes computer generated images of the blaze he started, is free to download, but requires a paid visit to get the full effect. “It’s about getting people through the door,” said Ms Brown.
Favourable currency exchange rates in the wake of Brexit have seen a surge in the number of US tourists, who now account for 16 per cent of York’s visitors.
Around three-quarters will visit the Minster, making it the city’s second most popular attraction for Americans, after the National Railway Museum. They are said to spend nearly £300 each in the city – more than twice as much as domestic visitors.
The Minster’s marketing manager, Stacey Healey, said showing off the cathedral to “new, technologically motivated audiences will offer visitors the chance to engage in a completely new way”.