Salisbury soaring Cathedral

Today, Tuesday September 17, we spent the whole day in the town of Salisbury, still in Southern England in the county of Wiltshire.  It is only 9 miles south of Stonehenge, but that is for another post. Our main goal here was to see the Salisbury Cathedral and one of the original copies of the Magna Carta. 

Salisbury Cathedral was initially built between 1220-1258.  It was built in the architectural style that is called Early English Gothic.  This style goes for height and light.  The higher you are, the closer to God you were! We were told that this Cathedral was not built on any ruins of previous churches and that other than going higher on its spire, was never added on to.  Like most older churches and cathedrals in England, it was originally a Catholic Cathedral but it is now a Chirch of England Cathedral.  During WWII it was not destroyed y the Nazis because they used it as a direction finder.  To get to and from London.  

I’ll just point out a few highlights of the tour in the pictures below.  After the group tour, I signed up for a 224 foot climb and tour to the highest point in the spire that you can go.   The spire is 404 feet so we couldn’t climb the last 180 feet.  It was a super interesting tour and I was glad that I wasn’t the one most afraid of the heights!  

This picture is very unique for me, in that the baptismal font is big and modern.  It is the black “pool” in the foreground.

I took this picture because the black long columns that are going from the floor to as far as you can see are all under the 4 corners of the Cathedral spire. They are all bowing out slightly at the top under the weight of the spire.  Yikes! 

I took this shot because just below the stain glass windows are arched recesses.  Our guide told us that there is a door to the right hand side, and choirs use to come out and stand in the recesses and sing hundreds of years ago.  Worst part is that the only way to get to each recess is a very small foot hold in front of each separation.  Another yikes! 

The next 3 pictures are all in the quire (pronounced choir) section.  This is the section where in the olden times, the priests and clergy and important dignitaries sat and had services up to 7 times a day.  The first picture  I took because the ornate tops were added during the Victorian age and I liked the looks of them.  The second one is the bishops chair.  On the left of the chair is the silver cross that is used in processions and to the right are the staffs they would use.   The 3rd is one of 3 organ banks.  

Moving on more towards the front of the church, this is a  chapel within the chapel, called a chantry chapel .   The purpose of these were for a family to pay a whole bunch of money to the church so prayers could be prayed for them in perpetuity.  The majority of these were destroyed by Henry the VIII, but the 2 in Salisbury were not. There are very few left in the country.  They said that while Salisbury had some church treasures destroyed, it was left pretty much untouched during the reformation.  Possibly because there was not Monestary or monks there.

Lastly, as a group we saw one of the original copies of the Magna Carta. 

There were 13 original copies of Magna Carta. 4 are remaining. We saw one of the originals in Salisbury.  The United States, Australia and New Zealand constitutions are all based on it.  We saw it, but couldn’t take photo.  This is a photo of the photo they had for us to look at it closer.  

Next, I joined a tour of 7 people that were going on a tour to the spire.  We went up a spiral staircase and came out above the main doors and I was able to get this great picture of the cathedral from there! 

Here, we were above the ceilings and our guide was showing us how the structure was supported.  It is hard to see, but the right side slats under the beams/supports are at an angle and the left side beams under those are horizontal.  That is because the sun hits the right side and the angles slats can expand and contract.  

On this level we could turn around and touch the stained glass windows, because they were right there.  I was glad I learned more about them in Canterbury because I could appreciate them so much more.    

Throughout the rafters were “apprentice” works, they would just randomly be in the rafters. 

On the next level up, to raise money for the Cathedral in 1990/1991 people bought panes of glass to have placed high in the cathedral glass.  I wonder if they will be there for 100s of years? 

There was always talk about the spire being so heavy that there is always danger of sinking or I assume falling and over the years there have been many attempts and engineers adding support.  Take a look at this first picture and look at the metal brace.  The support to the left is very bowed, and a newer support was braced to it. 

This is higher up in the spire, still below the bells, but there are added iron supports from the 1300’s (in white), the. Heavier iron supports added in the 17th century.  You can see arches of windows lower in the picture and the glass had been removed and filled in with bricks-for more support.  

If you look in the picture above. You can see cables going from the wooden structure up to the next level.  The wooden structure houses the timing for the bells, in the picture below, is the biggest of the 5 bells, it was made in 1661 (I think that is what it says on the bell). 

Next level - and mind you, we climbed super old stone winding steps anywhere from 25-60 each level and I was glad we got to catch our breath -  was the very large wheel that lifted over a ton to be able to bring larger stones or things up to the upper levels.  It was engineered to be able to easily turn it and the wheel could turn 360 degrees.  

Next level we had to get ourselves ready to climb these ladders!!!! JUST KIDDING, we were now as high as normal people could go.   The ladders were for the couple of times a year that they have to climb all the way to the top and mostly to change the bulbs on the mast that warns aircraft of the cathedral.  

Here I am, out on the highest part.  We got to look over 3 different sides. The 4th side was for the peregrine falcons that nest there. 

After coming back down, I headed to this wonderful tea shop on the River Avon.  Then headed out on a mile walk through “water meadows”.  Water meadows are an early way of farming, divert some water through fields, and they warm up fist and the grass around it either grows all the time or mostly all the time, providing feed for livestock. 

After walking a bit, I found that tea wasn’t enough to sustain me.  So I stopped for a beer and sandwich at this lovely spot by the River Avon.   In the picture of me, is where I sat for a couple of hours and just enjoyed the end of the day. 

Lastly, a couple more pics of the Cathedral spire - just because!