Glouceter Cathedral, 2026, Part The Second

Continuing our visit to Gloucester Cathedral...

Later in the visit, I took the elevated perambulatory...

Which is where they keep the dress-up stuff

His Holiness, Bishop Mark

And more of the interpretive stuff

Closer-up view of Pope Clement

Close quarters in the perambulatory

A Saxon sculpture of JC 

Pigeon-view of east window

More interpretive stuff, including the apparent "golfer"

Descent

Graffiti 

Now in the quire (choir), exquisitely carved, as usual...but, in this
extraordinary case, all 46 of the misericords were open and accessible...
not quite the lurid and lewd versions we prefer, but pretty good
nonetheless

Dragon back-biting?

Futbol?

Driving for a lay-up?

14th century English wood-carver's impression of what an elephant
must look like

Still processing

King perhaps not getting the best advice?

Among the more colorful chapels...great cathedral!

Gloucester Cathedral, 2026, Part The First

After an administrative day in Wells, we drove on to a motel at Michaelwood, from which we would visit Kilpeck, Gloucester, and other sites of interest in the area. First up, May 20th, was Gloucester and its great cathedral, which we'd visited twice before:

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/07/gloucester.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/07/gloucester-cathedral-basics.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/07/gloucester-cathedral-extras.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2016/05/gloucester-cathedral-2016.html.

The 2013 posts are the most comprehensive and give a pretty good account of the old town and cathedral. The 2016 post is exclusively about the fan vaulting in the cloisters. Below we will offer the usual new items and angles. We wandered in the cathedral first, then took the tour, then wandered some more...hence the posts below will not seem very well organized....

Approaching from the north

A bit of the exterior sculptural program

The windows range from Medieval to Victorian to
contemporary; this one depicts the coronation of Henry III
at Gloucester

And this the burial of Edward II at Gloucester, then
an abbey; neither the royal events associated with 
Gloucester were happy ones...look them up!

Much internal buttressing here

The great east window, completed in 1350, largest in
the world at the time; much of the Medieval glass is intact,
including the topmost depiction of Pope Clement; it is
equally curious why Clement would be at the top and not 
the Sky Daddy and also why he apparently escaped the
notice of Protestant reformers and their sharpshooters

Refurbishing the great old organ

Altar

Tomb of Edward II

Handwashing station outside the abbey refectory

Now, some glimpses of the cloisters and the fan vaulting

The fans are hollow and merely decorative; during WWII
there was concern that a damaged roof might allow water into
the fans and thus destroy them...so each fan had a hole drilled 
into it to allow the water to drain...above center leftish

View of the central tower from the cloister

Many great pix of the fan vaulting in the 2016 post

My one decent shot of the nave, with its enormous Norman piers;
and Norman (Romanesque) arches

Screen

One of the contemporary windows, "Rhapsody in Blue"

Can you hear the clarinet "smear"?

Wells Cathedral, 2026

Wells Cathedral has been among our favorite English cathedrals since we first saw it, in 2009. This was our sixth visit, at least. Others include:

https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2009/11/wells-cathedral.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2009/11/wells-cathedral-ii.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2013/06/wells-cathedral-2013.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2016/05/wells-cathedral.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2016/05/charity-shops.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2021/07/wells-cathedral-2021.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2022/05/wells-cathedral-2022.html
https://roadeveron.blogspot.com/2022/05/wells-st-cuthbert-parish-church.html.

For a comprehensive look at Wells Cathedral, and the reasons for our liking it so much, look at the posts above. For the present post, we'll do just a few basics, plus some new items or angles. Alas, we did not do the cathedral tour this time, assuming we knew the building pretty well. The tours are always wonderful, the docents extremely knowledgeable, and it is always a mistake not to do the tour. Next time.

The local parish church, St. Cuthbert's, is worth a look too, as it is of nearly the same age as the cathedral and is sometimes mistaken for it. It is referenced above. The older city center is charming, rife with British humor and culture, also referenced above.

St. Cuthbert's

West facade of Well's cathedral, said to be the best of English cathedrals;
scores of sculptures, some sufficiently high up to have escaped Civil War
damage

One of the Cloister halls, hosting an art exhibit

Now seated in the nave, taking in a bit of music; and
wondering about the unusual (to us) chairs...is the compartment
beneath the seat to store a hymnal? the Book of Common
Prayer? reading material you have brought with you to the
service? Plus, we have read than any place you put your bottom
is automatically profane (think: misericords); surely you would
not place the Book there, where it might be further profaned by,
um, emissions? 

Anyhow, moving right along, the nave view, and Wells'
most interesting and distinctive feature: the Scissors Arch,
which looks modern, or at least Victorian, but was built in
1338-1348 to save the central tower from collapsing; we 
like our cathedrals to have character; "to make fine wine,
the vine must suffer..."

Nave elevation

Ceiling

Some of the glass...this is England, and not much glass
survived the Reformation and the Civil War

Crossing and organ

Quire (choir)

Well-worn stairs to the chapter house, where the bishop
met with his subordinates

Anticipation of fan vaulting

Still in the chapter house...reminding the bishop, perhaps,
of his humanity

Anticipation of Van Gogh

The Lady Hall...in the 13th century, almost all British churches added
a "lady hall" for worship of the Queen of Heaven...

In previous Wells posts we have shown the Wells Cope Chest, the oldest
such chest for storage of priestly (bishoprical) vestments still in use in
the UK; this visit, it was open and the lad above was carefully folding and 
placing the garments back in the chest

Quite knowledgeable he was, too 

More glass

Ever popular Jesse "Tree"

In the south transept, where the more interesting capitals are,
the famous toothache

The infamous thorn

If you think a clock should have a face and keep minutes...
then this is the world's oldest; it also does moon phases, other
astronomical bits; and every 15 minutes, the knights joust,
one getting unhorsed...every day for 600+ years now

And Jack Blandiver rings the bell

In the chained library...one of only a few surviving

14th century pandemic face mask?

Reminded us of home in Florida