Winchester Cathedral is one of our three or four favorite English cathedrals...its great age and size, its architectural complexity, the many cultural treasures it contains, its salvation from near collapse at the end of the 19th century.... This was at least our 4th or 5th visit, and I won't attempt to give any sort of over-view of this historic and beautiful structure. To see pix from our previous visits, just enter "Winchester" in the search box. This visit, and one or two of the earlier ones, we took the tour, which was amazing and not to be missed.
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| Nave |
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| A chapel with 12th century paint |
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| In the north transept, Romanesque meets Gothic; the Brits don't use these terms, of course; instead, Norman, for Romanesque, and a variety of terms for Gothic, mostly perpendicular, which corresponds to rayonnant, and decorated, to flamboyant |
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| The huge altar piece at the head of the choir (quire); there's also a small screen at the bottom of the quire, where it's supposed to be; the Brits were out of the loop by the time the Council of Trent came along |
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| Looking abaft...avast! |
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| Monument to St. Swithun, bishop at Winchester, 852-862 |
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| Most of Winchester's oldest windows were destroyed in the Civil War, then reassembled into more or less meaningless reconstructions; this is a later intact set |
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| In the Lady Hall (Mary cult) |
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| Anne Boleyn (running gag) |
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| In the aforementioned altar piece, Victorian age, hence the Queen is included |
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| Nave ceiling boss...the dice the Roman soldiers were casting at the Crucifixion |
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| Crossing, with one of the great organs |
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| Now in the crypt, often closed in the spring because of flooding |
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| We had to go back to feed the meter...on the way...peer-led education underway |
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| A favorite sign outside the west end of the cathedral: "walk this way," "pray this way"...to discourage townsfolk cutting through the great church to save a few blocks' walking |
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| After a so-so lunch in the new refectory, we are in the cathedral museum in the upper floors of the south transept...which features, incidentally, the only cathedral elevator we've seen in Europe |
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| Model of the Norman church |
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| Later, a mix of Romanesque and mostly Gothic (perpendicular/ decorated...) |
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| Old ceiling boss, dragons biting each other's tails |
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| Late 1800s photo of the south wall, threatening collapse; some of the cracks were said to be wide enough for a small child to crawl through |
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| Enter William Walker, the diver who, "by his own hand," saved the cathedral, spending five years repairing and replacing its under-water east-end foundations |
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| In the Fisherman's Chapel and its shrine to Izaac Walton, author of The Compleat Angler... |
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| Among the beautiful William Morris windows |
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| And the Jane Austen memorial |
