Salisbury Cathedral

I have never liked Salisbury Cathedral. I don't know why. We returned to it in part because I wanted see whether my improved knowledge and experience of cathedrals might improve its rating. It didn't. Part of the cathedral experience is simply visceral. I simply don't get that experience at Salisbury. Perhaps it's too much light, uninteresting light. Perhaps the odd colors. Perhaps harmony and perfection are just not all that interesting. Perhaps it's being charged an $8 "donation" to get through the door. (What would Jesus think?) Perhaps it's all the hype that surrounds Salisbury.

View from the northwest on a cloudy, rainy, cold, blustery
day

Knave view

Elevation: the usual for an English Gothic

The Salisbury "clock"--no face, does not do minutes, causes a
noise to be made somewhere else every hour; a clock precursor,
not a clock

One of the few things I do like about Salisbury is the very large and very detailed
model of the cathedral under construction

Salisbury Cathedral was built in a very short time--short relative to other cathedrals--
more or less within one generation

The cathedral originally was at Old Sarum, 3 miles up the road, but the bishops and
the city fathers didn't get along and the bishop moved out; interestingly, everything
else followed, and Old Sarum is now an English Heritage Site and the title of a novel

Most graffiti I've ever seen on a tomb 

Let's see, henchman and bodyguard to Edward IV, Richard III, and Henry VII;
must have been quite a stud; but then unhorsed (but unhurt..."only a flesh wound")
by rascally Richard III; maybe it's in the name 

North transept

Chancel view; the other thing (and there are only two) that I like about this cathedral
is strictly contemporary, namely the blue windows there dedicated to "prisoners of
conscience everywhere"

View abaft from the bridge

The Quire; quire is to choir as lorry is to truck, we think; anyhow, nothing remarkable
here

Other transept

Vicki ponders the Grey tomb, which includes Lady Catherine
Grey, who testified against her sister, Lady Jane Grey, at her trial;
Lady Jane was Queen for nine days, you'll recall; this according
to the historical novels Vicki reads (as reported to me)