Norwich Cathedral

After Boston we drove on to Norwich. We'd been thinking about going to the motorhome and campervan show there on the 19th and finally decided to do it. You can camp at the show itself, but have to spend two or three nights, and we didn't think we wanted to spend that much time there. So we found a nice rural layby a few miles from town, by a horse ranch, drove next morning to the Park & Ride, and easily bused into Norwich, to spend a day there before the motorhome show began. We visited Norwich cathedral, doing one of its excellent tours, and then spent the balance of the day visiting other almost equally ancient sites in the town, the market, the Medieval halls, and so on. Next post.

Someone else's picture; couldn't get far enough away to do my normal west facade view

Nave: very Norman, 12th century, until you look up at the 15th century ceiling; note
organ is part of the rood screen

Nave ceiling; enlarge to see the hundreds of ceiling bosses

Thus

Elevation

Easily one of the more interesting baptismal fonts (the doll is there to help
explain to heathens why Christians dunk their children) we have seen: most
fonts in this part of the world are stone, often beautifully carved, older generally
than the church they sit in; not this one--it is the caramel stirring pot from the
now closed Mackintosh/Rowntree candy manufacturing company that was
located in Norwich back in the Good Old Whenever; inventor and maker of Rolos;
Vicki asked the guide whether there was controversy about replacing the ancient
old font with this new copper stirring pot...the guide seemed astonished at the
question...no, she said everyone loves it... sic transit, Gloria; ad majorem
gloriam Dei...Amen

One of a pair of twisty columns in the nave; Norwich is just
a tad younger than Durham, but shares many such features

Remnant of ancient scene on ceiling

Not funny

This is a look into one of the piers/columns: 99% of the
structure is rubble, chiefly flint, the main building material
hereabouts, with a thin veneer of Caen limestone...brought
to Norwich via the Channel, the North Sea, then up the
river...

Christian graffiti...said to be a prayer for the safety of a ship...

Now in the quire

Attempted artsy showing the meeting of styles

Cathedral cat, spends most of every day here in the quire; the guide said it was a major
priority to get him out of the cathedral very evening, lest his nocturnal prowling set
off the motion detectors

Many misericords on view

Now in the chancel, before the altar

The Erpingham Window...local boy who was one of the
leaders and heroes of Agincourt; typical English window

In the St. Luke Chapel, the Despenser Reredos, 1380, depicting scenes of the Passion,
the piece is remarkable for its great age and survival; also remarkable that it's not
in the National Gallery

Grave of Edith Cavell, nursing and Red Cross leader, who
was executed by the Germans in 1915 for helping Allied
soldiers back across the battle lines in Belgium; she was from
near Norwich

Norwich has the second largest of English cloisters

And the only one that's a double-decker

And...a labyrinth!

Interlude: The Madness Has Begun

I'm about two weeks behind with the blog, and may get further behind since we're now in a flat in Edinburgh until August 13th. After putting Le Duc in storage, we arrived in the Festival City August 2nd, just as the Festival and Fringe were getting underway. It's our 3rd Edinburgh Festival and Fringe, but this time will be best, since we're living 15 minutes' walk from the Royal Mile--not camping out in the hustings--and will be here for far longer than than our previous 3-4 day visits. We've already been to two musical comedies, one on Brexit (!)(we'll see Trump: The Musical Thursday night), and Legally Blonde today. And the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo Monday night. Then we'll get really busy. The whole affair is the world's largest conglomeration of festivals. The Fringe guide alone is about 450 pages, divided among Cabaret and variety, Children's shows, Comedy, Dance, Events, Exhibitions, Music, Musicals and opera, Spoken word, and Theatre; plus all the craziness that goes on with the hundreds of street performers. There are as many as 20 acts listed per page in the guide, many running the entirety of the month-long Fringe. Do the math and you'll see that there is a dizzying array of things to choose from, much, if not most of it, controversial, avant-garde, or experimental. And then there are the many Edinburgh Festival festivals. The book festival, largest and longest such in the world, runs August 10th-26th, and includes hundreds of writers and scholars. Its guide runs a mere 150 pages. Just walking among the excited masses in Old Edinburgh is electrifying enough. About three million visitors are expected this month. Anyhow, if the blog is delayed or seems a bit giddy, you'll know why!

Looking in the direction of Holyrood Palace, Saturday afternoon

Boston Stump, 2

Apart from the Stump, and its place in Protestant and maybe political history, St. Botolph's is known also for the carvings in its quire, the wooden answer to the grotesques in stone we find so interesting...

A couple dozen misericords, none we saw terribly outrageous

But there was more

The hours it must have taken to do all this, not to mention the skill...

Nice English windows

Huh? 

In 1931, no less; good on Big Boston

Helpful model

In what is now the John Cotton memorial chapel..."the Lantern of St. Botolph's,"
as Longfellow wrote; after he sailed for Massachusetts Bay, the Church of England
replaced him with a more staid vicar, and things returned to their non-radical state

Part of what it takes to maintain an eight century old civic building

Muy importante! The Gough Map (a copy, the original, from Boston, is in the
Bodleian Library, Oxford; where it is known as the Bodleian Map): first road
map of England: 1360

Outside tracery and such

And a single Green Man

Market day in Boston

As I observed previously, there is a significant Eastern European presence in these
parts; we'd never seen a Baltic grocery...

The Swan Building?!

Boston Stump, 1

Still in Lincolnshire, but working our way back to Norwich--to be explained--we took in yet another 5-star parish church, the so-called Boston Stump. St. Botolph's. Simply stated, the early 14th century builders of this church just kept building the tower, never quite getting to a spire, and then apparently decided a spire might be too much weight on an already heavy edifice, and so stopped there. 16th century. The tower itself is the highest in England, 272 feet--any sort of steeple would have topped St. Wulfram's easily--but no, they stopped there with the tower, and the church has since then been known as the "Stump." Some stump! The church is impressive, nonetheless, both inside and outside. And historically: the Massachusetts Bay Colony was born from the Stump, five of its members becoming Governors of Massachusetts, and all duly noted in the memorials. Renovation work was going on in the tower, and much in the nave was covered up. But it was market day in Boston, and the church was nonetheless a hive of activity.

View from the river

From the town market square

In its later history, 17th century, the Stump was a hotbed of radicalism and
religious reform: Puritans! And so fervent were they that they crossed the ocean
to the New World to found a "city upon a hill" [click to enlarge]

A little church history

Font

In the hall beneath the tower

Directly beneath the tower...now the coffee shop...

Children's area...everything now covered for the renovation

Yes! Among several fundraisers, they have a Lego project underway

Vicki does our part, pressing a piece into what will be a window

Nave ceiling

Quire, altar

Another of the fundraisers is selling off bits of the tower that are being replaced;
alas, not for people who live in small RVs

Interior grotesques

Ceiling above the quire and altar