Cathedral Stories

The ruins of the Cathedral Church of St Michael are a haunting site. Built between the late 14th and early 15th centuries, a shell is all that remains following the massive attack by German bombers on the night of November 14, 1940. Originally one of the largest...

Derby is a reasonably recent inductee into the Cathedral ranks—1927, to be precise. That's when the parish church of All Saints became Derby Cathedral. Of the medieval church, only the tower remains. The rest fell victim to the ambitions of the then vicar Michael...

As cathedrals go, Ely Cathedral is one of the biggies. Literally, at 537 ft long, but also because of its story, which began in 672.  A lot has happened in the intervening 13+ centuries. Not just the usual political squabbling and overly ambitious clerics, but...

Exeter is a scrumptious frothy wedding cake of a cathedral with the longest continuous vault in Europe. While it retains its sturdy Norman towers, the majority of what we see today is of the exuberant Decorated gothic design and was completed around 1400. Following...

When on holiday, some people do pub crawls. I tend more to Cathedral marathons, and Gloucester Cathedral is one of my all time favourites, largely due to the cloisters, the quadrangle of ancillary buildings to the Cathedral proper. Aren't they gorgeous? They were...

Guildford Cathedral is the last of the Church of England Cathedrals to be built on a new site and one of only three built in the twentieth century—the other two are Coventry and Liverpool. Fearing the worst, particularly in light of my distaste for Coventry, I was...

On this most poignant of Remembrance days, the centenary of Armistice Day of WWI, let's have a look at the display of ceramic poppies which has been making its way around the UK since August 2014. We visited the Weeping Window display at Hereford Cathedral this past...

The venerable Church of St Martin, Leicester, was late to the Cathedral party, being elevated to Cathedral status only in 1922. Built on the site of Roman ruins, it is very likely one of the six churches referred to in the Domesday book of 1086. Its namesake is a...

On Maundy Thursday we left Fox Cottage in Bretforton and drove to Lichfield. The plan was to see Lichfield Cathedral in the morning and Shugborough Estate, home of the Earl of Lichfield in the afternoon. The best laid plans... We usually confine ourselves to one...

In 1307, Lincoln Cathedral's central tower spire was the tallest manmade structure in the world. At a soaring 525 feet, it was higher than the great pyramid at Giza. Unfortunately, a gale brought it down to earth in 1549. But I'm getting ahead of myself. So let's...

It's big. Enormous. I'd even go so far as to say it's monstrous, as in "an imaginary creature that is typically large, ugly and frightening" monstrous. Except it's not imaginary. It's all too real. Liverpool Cathedral is the largest Cathedral, nay, religious building,...

Manchester Cathedral, or the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Mary, St Denys and St George as it's more formally known (because you need three saints to round things out), was on the agenda for our trip this last December. Manchester has one of the better...

Newcastle Cathedral is the seat of the northernmost diocese of the Church of England, reaching all the way up to Berwick (pronounced "Berrik")-upon-Tweed in Northumberland. Newcastle experienced a massive increase in its population in the mid-19th century, igniting...

Norwich Cathedral embodies the single-minded ambition of its first bishop, Herbert de Losinga. A controversial figure, our Herbert. He secured his position through bribery and displayed equal contempt for Norwich's local citizenry, dispossessing and demolishing about...

The origins of the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew hark back to 655 AD when the site was one of the earliest monastic settlements in central England. All went on swimmingly until 854 when the Viking "Great Heathen Army" led by "Ivar the Boneless"...

Petite Portsmouth is one of the later recruits to the fold of English Anglican Cathedrals. Cobbled together over the centuries, we have a building that grew from east to west, in the reverse direction to the construction of most of its brethren. The weather vane on...

For all its storied history, as cathedrals go, Ripon Cathedral is surprisingly modest and unassuming. The current building is the fourth incarnation.The first was begun in 660 by St. Wilfred, abbot of the monastery at Ripon. It consisted of a stone bascilica in the...

Founded in 604 by Justus, the Bishop of Rochester, St Augustine's first bishop, Rochester Cathedral had the dubious distinction (along with Carlisle and Chichester) of being an "impoverished see"—making it an unpopular appointment within the church, as it came without...

Salisbury Cathedral, also known as New Sarum, is blessed with several unique attributes. First is its architectural consistency. Barring the tower and spire, it was constructed all in one go between 1220 and 1258, a mere 38 years, in a mature Early Gothic style....

With its southeast corner a mere 18 metres from the main railway viaduct connecting London Bridge station to Blackfriars, Cannon Street and Charing Cross stations, one has to concede that Southwark Cathedral is smack dab in the middle of the bustling activity that...

Southwell Minster is renowned for its exquisite medieval carved stonework, second to none in any English Cathedral. The deeply undercut foliage, often with glimpses of wildlife and green men beneath, is truly spectacular. But we are getting ahead of ourselves. So...

St Albans is the red-headed stepchild of cathedrals, poor thing. Conceivably the oldest known site of Christian worship in England, and at 85 metres, the longest nave of any of the cathedrals, it's a crazy quilt of design. It sits perched on a hill above the Roman...