Cathedrals, Fens and Moors

May 21, 2011
Yesterday was a day of cathedrals. The morning was spent in Cambridge at King's College Chapel. By all accounts King Henry VII was an incompetent king. His only accomplishments of note were in the area of religion and education. It was Henry VII who founded the University of Cambridge and Eton College. And it was his vision that led to the construction of King's College Chapel. From floor to ceiling King's College Chapel is the tallest cathedral in England. This heigth creates an optical allusion that it is a very narrow church. This is not the case. As you can see from the picture in the previous post, the ceiling is spectacular in its ornateness.
It was a relatively short drive to Ely to visit the Cathedral there. This is a Norman Cathedral with a very unusual octagonal tower in the middle over the transept. Norman construction features arches that are curved rather then pointy. The ceiling is made of wood with beautiful paintings the entire length of the ceiling. Ely Cathedral was featured in the movie, "The King's Speech". You may remember the scene where the King's speech teacher sits on the King's throne much to the horror of the King. This was filmed at Ely Cathedral. As a matter of fact the thorne was in the cathedral and one could sit in it for a photo op. Unfortunately, Colin Firth was not there for the photo op.
Leaving Ely, we drove to York. On the way we drove through Lincoln. We did not stop but Lincoln also has a beautiful cathedral that sits in a very commanding position on a hill over looking the city. The guide book indicates that this is also a beautiful Norman cathedral.
This morning we visited York Minster, another word for cathedral. The Church of England actually has two Archbishops, the well known Archbishop of Canterbury and the Archbishop of York. The Archbishop of York is the head of the Church in Northern England. We feel we are being redundant in talking of the beauty of each of these Cathedrals but, as Tim told a custodian at Ely Cathedral, they are each beautiful in their own way. A couple of interesting facts about York that distinguish it from the other Cathedrals. York was built by the Catholics so that there were statues of catholic saints throughout the church. After Henry VIII left the Catholic Church and created the Church of England all of the statues of saints in the York Minister were beheaded so that any remaining catholics would not know which saints to worship. A very contemporary series of statues of the Virgin Mary were commissioned about five years ago and, keeping with tradition, these statues are also without heads. The second fact concerns the ceiling. It is made of wood and has been destroyed by fire on many occasions, last occurring in the last 20 or 30 years. When the roof is repaired, it is always returned to its original design. There are large decorations, for lack of a better word, in the roof that are usually religious or Tudor roses or some such thing. The last time the ceiling was repaired a contest was held for children under the age of 14 to submit designs for these decorations and six of them were used for the ceiling. One of them shows an astronaut on the moon. Quite an inspired decision on someones part. Also of interest, when a new king is crowned, he is crowned in Westminster Abbey. If and when William is crowned King it will be in London, but Kate will be crowned queen in York.
Enough about Cathedrals. We've spent enough time in them in last two days that we probably have a free pass from Church this morning. (This posting has been written over several days.)
We have always found it fascinating that in such a small country there can be such big differences in landscape. As we drove east of London into East Anglia we were in an area called the Fens. Several hundred years ago this was all marsh land. In a great engineering feat the marshland has been drained and now the Fens have some of the richest farmlands in all of Europe. Yesterday, as we drove from York towards Chester, where we are now, we drove over the Sallowood Moor. A moor is somewhere between a hill and a mountain. The landscape was very austere, stark and a bit foreboding but, none the less gorgeous to drive through.
Today we start what is planned to be two days in Chester. Cheers!