The cold was compounded by the failure of the gas a few days previously, which meant that the cathedral was even colder than usual for the time of year. It was no wonder that the notables of its glory days were so often portrayed in layers of clothing covering them from neck to ankle and topped off with a substantial hat. The volunteer manning (actually a woman) the paying desk appeared to have on several coats and scarves plus hat and gloves. There was a two bar electric fire sitting beside the stool she was perched on, reminding me of winter evenings of my childhood, similarly perched over an electric fire while doing one's homework - or whatever it was that one got up to in one's bedroom. Let's hope the Prince-Bishop is exempt from Health & Safety regulations.
But before we got that far, we had stood in the elaborate porch and wondered what the murmuring was from inside. Stepped inside to find a small herd of cleaners, perhaps volunteers, polishing the floor of the nave with serious push-along rotary floor polishers, The nave had been cleared of chairs, across the crossing and through to the screen, for the purpose, which meant that we got a splendidly uncluttered view, which now included the various interesting patterns worked in stone into the floor. Patterns which, like the ceiling, had been done by the Victorians, but done rather well. A very sympathetic bit of restoration.
As on the last visit, very struck by the stone floors and the religious vandalism of the time of Henry VIII. Also by the quite large number of pilasters, almost columns, which reached up into the air just to stop, not supporting anything. A mismatch of structure and function, but one which did not seem to matter that much, More troubling, there were a number of roof ribs which appeared bent to my eye, That apart, the stonework was splendid; a masterpiece in limestone - or more probably the masterpieces of lots of master masons.
And then there were the episcopal boxes. The foundation saint, the wife of some Saxon chief, got a shrine, long destroyed. The bishops from the time of the building of the present cathedral got large boxes, maybe eight feet by two feet six by two feet six, much the same as those used for kings, for example Richard II, in the ambulatory of Westminster Abbey. Then, as time wore on and space wore out, the boxes got progressively smaller, until by the nineteenth century all you got was a stone slab let into the floor, with all the tourists footing it over you. Very undignified. And if you were merely a canon rather than a bishop, a small tablet let into the wall. But at least what you lost in size, you gained in not being walked over.
Over more recent years, the cathedral authorities have acquired an interesting selection of modern ecclesiastical art, some successful, some not. But right to try, at least, that is, if one takes the point of view of said authorities. Otherwise, the place just becomes a mausoleum for dead people and their dead values. Musical authorities, fond of early 19th century music from the German speaking world, have a similar problem.
Also an interesting mixture of stained glass, a mixture not so much of young and old, which I did not know about, more of some which I liked and some which I didn't like, In a building of this age, I think I prefer my stained glass not to be, in effect, pictures of saints on glass. The glass should reflect the setting more than that; play to the medium rather than in spite of it. Stained glass museum in the triforium level interesting, with some very old, but rather more Victorian and later glass. One wondered how a substantial chunk of 13th century (or so) stained glass from Soissons Cathedral wound up there. One also got different angles on the cathedral stonework.
The only failing which I noticed was the use of electric to augment the natural light. A lot of this was too strong and dazzled rather than illuminated.
Better sausage roll in the cathedral café than that which I had bought from the pie shop in Huntingdon. Better grade of both sausage meat and pastry. Served by a middle aged lady from Sarejevo, in England, she told us, for years and years. Since long before the recent troubles there. Some of the other volunteers were very much fen people, with interesting accents and topics of conversation. Not the sort of thing one would expect in a Cambridge charity shop at all.
Not having taken a suitable picture myself, I turned to google for one. Plenty on offer, most of which illustrated the difficulty of capturing even some part of the experience. Plumped for this one, from some part of the wikipedia empire, which gives something of the oddly soft texture of the unusually hard limestone (from Barnack) - but gives little sense of the great height of the nave.
Reference 1: it seems that our last visit was just about two years ago. See http://psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/visit-report-ely-cathedral.html,
PS: I notice in passing that Jame Fawcett's book is now available at Amazon for around £250, so I shall still have to give it a miss; a pity as this visit to Ely has rearoused my interest in old stone floors.
No comments:
Post a Comment