Olive Oil Expected to Rescue 800-Year-Old Cathedral

There are few left in this world to doubt that air pollution is bad, especially as far as public health is concerned.

However, it seems that the chemical compounds that build up in the air as a result of our heavily industrialized ways can also harm architectural monuments.

This is precisely what is happening to an 800-year-old cathedral from northern England. Apparently, York Minster was built using a type of limestone that happens to be quite vulnerable to air pollution in general, and acid rains in particular.

However, specialists hope that their idea of protecting it with the help of olive oil will prove to be an inspired one, sources say.

More precisely, they expect that, once the cathedral finds itself drenched in olive oil, this will double as a water repellent and keep any acid rains that might fall on this building from toying with its architecture.

For the time being, the scientists who came up with this idea of using olive oil to fight back the effects that air pollution has on historical monuments are busy running tests on sample stones.