Winchester Cathedral

After two nights, we left Pitlochry for Glasgow. My Aunt Jody was arriving very early the next day from Florida for a two-week visit. During her visit, we toured a bit of England and a chunk of Scotland. Our first stop in England was Winchester Cathedral.

Steve and I stopped here a few years ago when I was in England doing dissertation research. But there was a long line to get in and Steve was concerned that we didn't pay for enough time at the carpark, so we ended up leaving. I was very disappointed, so I was happy to return.

Winchester Cathedral has roots dating back to the seventh century when England's then-pagan monarchy first converted to Christianity. Cynegils, the West Saxon king, was baptized in 635 and the first Christian church was built in Winchester a little over a decade later by his son. This small, cross-shaped church, known as the Old Minster, became the seat of a bishop who governed a huge diocese. In the tenth century, Bishop Aethelwold made the church bigger and grander. The bones of St. Swithun, a former bishop, were dug up from the church forecourt and moved to a new shrine inside the church.

When William the Conqueror took the throne of England in 1066, he replaced Winchester's last Saxon bishop with his own royal chaplain, Walkelin. The French bishop began construction of a new Norman Romanesque church next to the Old Minster. The Old Minster was demolished and its stones were used to build the new cathedral, which was consecrated in 1093.

The Cathedral has been redesigned and augmented several times in the succeeding centuries. A Gothic-style retrochoir was added in the early 1200s to offer pilgrims to St. Swinthun's Shrine a place to congregate. A new presbytery (where the altar stands) replaced the original Norman Romanesque apse in the early 1300s. And the nave, the central part of the church where most of the congregation worshiped, was transformed at the expense of successive bishops during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.

I grabbed this floor plan from the cathedral's website. It indicates which parts of the church were rebuilt and during what period. I thought it might prove interesting:

And now to my photos:

Here's the front entrance of the cathedral. There was a massive renovation project going on that obscured most of the cathedral's exterior. I didn't bother taking any photos outside beyond this one. Back in 2013, pretty much the only photos I took were of the outside. If you'd like to take a look, you can find them here.

A spectacular ceiling looking down the nave looking toward the quire, which stands behind the large wooden screen. The quire (or choir) is an area of a church that provides seating for the clergy and the choir.

Steve and I lit candles for our mothers, who both passed away this year (within eight days of each other).

Some spectacular stained glass in the West Window.

More of the nave's ceiling. I love ceilings. The ornate designs are roof bosses, which are carvings in stone (like here) or wood that cover the joins between the stone ribs of the vaulted ceiling. Winchester Cathedral is home to over a thousand roof bosses ranging from simple 13th-century leaf designs to elaborate Renaissance images of angels, beasts, heraldic symbols, and emblems of Christ's Passion.

One of several smaller chapels.

This is taken within the quire looking toward the altar.

The pipe organ.

The 15th-century Great Screen, which stands behind the high altar. The original painted sculptures that once adorned the carved niches were destroyed in the Reformation. Notice the painted, wooden roof bosses on the ceiling.

Standing within the quire looking back up the nave.

This is Bishop Stephen Gardiner's chantry chapel. He married Queen Mary I and Prince Philip of Spain in July 1554. Seven chantry chapels were added to the cathedral between the 14th and 16th centuries. Chantry chapels were places where daily masses were said for the souls of the bishops who built them (a bit self-serving, if you ask me). Winchester has more chantry chapels than any other English cathedral, which demonstrates the church's great power, wealth, and royal connections.

This is an ornate ceiling medallion within the 15th-century chantry chapel of Bishop William of Waynflete.

These are the medieval floor tiles in the retrochoir. They date back to the 1200s! I loved their color and design. It's a bit mind-boggling walking on 800-year old flooring. Winchester Cathedral boasts the largest assemblage of medieval floor tiles.

Some more colorful roof bosses.

In the early 1900s, Winchester Cathedral was in danger of collapse. The church was built upon very wet, peaty soil and the ground was giving way beneath the building's enormous weight. Massive cracks appeared the cathedral's walls and vaulted ceilings. Chunks of stone fell to the ground, and some holes were big enough for owls to roost in them. An architect was brought in to correct the problem and he decided to underpin the building's south and east walls by digging trenches and filling them with concrete. The problem was the high water table that flooded the trenches as soon as they were dug.

That's when the project's engineer had a brainstorm: If they couldn't keep out the water, why not hire a deep-sea diver to work within it? Beginning in 1906, diver William Walker worked six hours a day in water up to nearly twenty feet deep excavating tunnels and filling them with concrete. He worked in total darkness beneath the cathedral for nearly six years. In total, the rescue team packed the foundations with an estimated 25,000 bags of concrete; 115,000 concrete blocks; and 900,000 bricks.

This sculpture of Walker hails him as the man who saved the cathedral. It stands next to his diving helmet in tribute to his hard work.

Some different roof bosses.

These are the mortuary chests. They contain the bones of some of the early monarchs of Wessex and Bishops of Winchester.

Another mortuary chest, with some of the heraldic roof bosses beyond.

A look down the nave. If you look at the arches, you'll see they don't quite line up. I am not 100% sure, but I think this is where some of the walls have leaned a bit. As noted earlier, Winchester Cathedral is built upon peaty soil with a high water table. Not the most solid of ground.

Some more gorgeous ceiling work.

Winchester Cathedral is the final resting place of Wessex kings, but it's the grave site of an author that draws the biggest crowds. Jane Austen was laid to rest here in 1817. This is her original memorial. You'll see it makes no mention of her books.

This more ornate brass plaque was erected in 1872 to redress the original memorial's omission. Jane's fame as an author grew after her death. Her nephew, Edward, wrote a memorial to her in 1870 and used the proceeds to buy this plaque, which hangs on the wall near her grave.