As part of a day of training for emergency evacuation of people from the roof tower, I stand on the lip of the void to the roof boss that has been hoisted upwards and sideways to reveal the most gut-wrenching, yet mesmerising view of the world below. Next to me, the boss is the size of a dinner table – but from the tower crossing far below, it appears no more than a tiny dot.

And then I get the nod to swing out into the opening. It’s an awkward breached entry into the world beneath, but as soon as I’m released from the pedestrian realm of the loft I slip into a different order of being - a counter-visual - a wondrous, magical world revealed from a perspective that I’ve never experienced before.

During my descent, there is a moment that stretches thinly. I turn slowly, and the whole Minster gathers itself before me in one sweeping gesture: geometry drawn taut from east to west, vaults and arcades rippling like concentric waves on water. The interventions that usually stopper my view from my earthly perspective - all gone. The building, stiffened by centuries, seems alive and full of motion, yet time is held in perfect stillness.

From this vantage, the Minster feels less like a monument and more like a steadying hand, a reminder that our need for meaning is as old and elemental as our need for food, love, and shelter. It is, in its own way, my overview effect - not gazing down on Earth from orbit, but seeing the pattern and light embrace the tiny people below. Through shape and shadow, contour and form, I glimpse a deeper coherence – the peaks and troughs of humanity expressed through the material. And in some curious shift in perspective (like the zoom of my lens) it makes the deliberations of the present world seem shallow and absurd. Additionally, it isn’t lost on me that even this experience of wonder is only feasible because of another kind of inheritance: the people, ropes and pulleys, the patient procedures refined over decades, the careful checks and double checks that hold me safe. A choreography of trust rooted in time.

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