AFTER-DARK visitors to York Minster next week will have an  opportunity to see it in a whole new light.

The cathedral is taking part in this year’s Illuminating York festival with kaleidoscopic projections and a giant metallic orb.

From Wednesday, October 31 to Saturday, November 3 there will be kaleidoscopic images projected on the wall of the nave during the evening.

It has also installed a brand new domed gallery, called The Orb, which will be displaying some of the minster’s restored medieval stained glass.

Events manager Stephanie O’Gorman said: “York Minster was designed with vast expanses of glass to let as much light in as possible – which was expensive, ambitious and technologically challenging - permitting God’s light shine through. So being in a building like York Minster after dark is a very different, special experience.”

In a display that celebrates York’s 800th anniversary of the City Charter, 800 candles will be positioned on the floor of the Chapter House for visitors to light.

It will also mark the feast of All Souls, when families traditionally remember loved ones they have lost.

Other activities include storytelling in the children’s chapel, torch-lit explorations of the minster’s carved animals and the chance to climb the central tower and view the city at night.

During the festival, York’s Museum Gardens will also be transformed into an illuminated wonderland.

Comedian Vic Reeves has helped create large-scale projections based on absurdist work by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Tickets to Illuminating York Minster are £5 adults, £2.50 children and available by calling 0844 939 0015 or visit www.yorkminster.org Tickets to the Museum Garden’s Wonderland are available from York Theatre Royal on 01904-623568 or at; yorktheatreroyal.co.uk