Cathedrals a journey in drawings by Tim Baynes

The Cathedrals of England A Journey in drawings TIM BAYNES

The Cathedrals of England A Journey in drawings

© 2016 Tim Baynes. All rights reserved. Printed in Great Britain.   First paperback edition printed 2016 in the United Kingdom. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-0-9926740-3-8 No part of this book shall be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information retrieval system without written permission of the publisher.

Introduction Our journeys across the country to visit the cathedrals of England were initially driven by thrift. We’d been to Stonehenge one New Year’s Day and were horrified at the cost of entry and number of people. Also there was a feeling of being hemmed in and herded round that wonderful place. Soon after, we cast around for alternatives to visit, places of history. I suggested churches, Siân, my wife, countered with cathedrals and pulled up a list on the Internet. Thus the project was born. We have visited thirty-three cathedrals, beginning our outings in March 2009.

Published by Tim Baynes  Designed and Set by timbaynesart www.timbaynesart.co.uk  Special thanks to the following people for their help and support: Photography Chris Worthington. Editor Heather Mellerish. Stone for the front cover photography supplied by Cliveden Conservation 01628 604721. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this book, the publisher and author assume no responsibility for errors or omissions. Neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of this information contained herein.

Cathedral architecture: hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the plan

Cathedral architecture: a timeline

Canterbury

A splendid example of Gothic Revival, this church sits above the town like a Disney palace. The Cathedral Church of Our Lady and St Philip Howard was dedicated in 1873. Built in the French Gothic style of the 1400s and made possible through the generosity of the 15th Duke of Norfolk. He also ‘sponsored’ the Roman Catholic Cathedral in Norwich.

This is the mother church of Anglicism. As you enter, nothing prepares you for her lofty grace. When we are asked “Which is your favourite cathedral?” ‘Canterbury’ is a tempting answer.

Photograph: NotFromUtrecht.

Arundel

The church looks lofty from outside, inside its delicate nave arcades accentuate this. A magnificent place and sadly one of our shortest visits. A Requiem Mass was taking place later in the morning so we had just twenty minutes to pay our respects before being ushered out.

Bristol Bristol is up the hill towards Clifton on College Green. It was established in 1140 originally as a Romanesque abbey. The Chapter House is the surviving gem of this period. Two lady chapels ushered in the Gothic style with fine ‘reach-for-thesky’ carvings. Work on creating a new nave was interrupted by Henry VIII in 1539. Ah yes, the Reformation! It was nearly three hundred and thirty years later that G.E. Street finished the job. J.L. Person (architect of Truro Cathedral) added a high altar reredos and the western towers. Job done. 4

Heading to come?

The early Gothic quire’s timorous transition from the Romanesque is hard to detect. Work here began in earnest after Becket’s martyrdom; the subsequent veneration of Becket made the cathedral a place of pilgrimage and attracted wealth as a result. The Bell Harry Tower and the Nave complete the architectural scramble into the later Perpendicular period. Bell Harry Tower, completed in 1498, is 250 feet high. It sits at the centre of this minster, majestic from a distance and calls us to the birthplace of English Christianity.

Chester

Coventry

We entered the cathedral on a dark March afternoon, just in time for choir practice. Inside, all is warm pink and brown stone, absorbing the divine choral sounds.

As soon as the dust had settled on blitz-torn Coventry, plans were laid to rebuild the cathedral. In 1956 the foundation stone was laid to mark the vision of one man, Basil Spence. To understand the new Coventry Cathedral, one should read Rise of the Phoenix at Coventry: The Building of a Cathedral, Spence’s personal account of this amazing creation.

Chester was founded on a Saxon minster and monastery to protect St Werberg’s remains from the hands of the dastardly Danes! With the arrival of the Normans it became a Benedictine Abbey.

Carlisle Meanwhile at the other end of England, in the north-west, is a small rosy-stoned Norman church on the English-Scottish frontier. Some of Carlisle’s stone was originally used on Hadrian’s Wall. Uniquely, Carlisle was set up as an Augustinian priory, founded by Henry I in 1122.

By the hand of Henry VIII Chester was reinvented as a Cathedral. Since then it has been pulled about: A Victorian restoration, by Sir Giles Gilbert Scott included a refaced exterior and four corner turrets. Chester’s rather special Consistory Court is the only old remaining church court in the country, late C16.

Carlisle is one of England’s smallest cathedrals, after the demolition of its nave by the Scottish Presbyterian Forces in 1649. The remaining nave contains lovely Romanesque arcading now festooned with Regimental Colours. Many view Carlisle as having the finest tracery in England in its Decorated east window.

Chichester Chichester is crammed full of modern art: A tapestry by John Piper, a stained glass window designed by Marc Chagall, and paintings by Hans Feibusch and Graham Sutherland. Philip Jackson’s sculpture ‘Christ in Judgement’ is located above the Lady Chapel.

Behind the altar Graham Sutherland’s tapestry ‘Christ in Glory’ is a triumph of the weaver’s art and ingenuity. John Piper contributes glass, fired by Patrick Reyntiens. Outside, dark on a wall of pink limestone, is Jacob Epstein’s St Michael.

It was a sunny day when we entered through the west door. The place looked bright and elevated with Romanesque, Early English and Perpendicular. Entering Chichester you appreciate the whole length of the church. A strong, symphonic arcade and triforium is crowned by a Transitional clerestory and stone-vaulted roof. Gothic goodness abounds. Sensationally in 1861 the spire collapsed and super-architect Sir George Gilbert Scott flew to the rescue and built a new one, exactly the same.

Ely

Gloucester

‘The ship of the fens’ is the sobriquet that indicates Ely’s majestic rise from a fenland landscape.

With light fading I sat to draw its towers from the Cloister Garden. It was so cold that afternoon. A lasting memory was gratitude that there was a Primark round the corner where we purchased hats, scarves and gloves.

Etheldreda, a Saxon princess, founded a monastery here in 673. It went on to house her shrine, sadly destroyed in the Reformation. The Danes razed the church to the ground in 869. Today’s cathedral took one hundred years to build. Everywhere there is superb Romanesque and Transitional.

Durham A river runs round it, the River Wear is Durham’s girdle. Durham is Norman architecture in its Sunday suit. The massive Romanesque towers stand like tall trees over the Wear, with Bishop Booth’s more delicate central tower (1415–1490) seeming to peer over their shoulders.

Ely possesses England’s largest Lady Chapel.

The Cathedral welcomes you with a fine Romanesque nave with dogtooth detailing on the arches. The counterpoint is the intricate Perpendicular Choir. There are more Perpendicular reveries in the great cloister, arguably the finest we have seen, and a bewitching Lady Chapel.

Exeter This is a jewel of the South West of England. The Normans arrived in 1107 and their Romanesque twin towers now form the transepts of the church, this is a unique arrangement in an English Cathedral.

Gloucester’s huge east window is in essence a glass reredos. Celebrated in its stained glass are many of the Knights that fought at Crécy in 1346.

The great nave has thirty pillars of Purbeck marble, and fabulous vaulting that continues throughout the church. It is the longest stretch of gothic vaulting in the world. This is all the vision of one man, Bishop John Gradisson (1327–1369). He also squeezed in a wonderful Minstrel’s Gallery on the upper level of the Nave, another unique feature of Exeter.

One of Durham’s chapels is the burial place of the Venerable Bede, who wrote the first history of England. Nave, choir, transepts are all Romanesque. St Cuthbert’s shrine is marked by a colourful piece by Sir Ninian Comper. Sir George Gilbert Scott contributes a marble screen to mark the transition from nave to high altar, onwards and upwards to Cuthbert’s shrine in the Apse.

Vision Creating a cathedral, certainly the vision for it, was often the work of one man: Bishop Gradisson (Exeter) Chris Wren (St Pauls) and it was St Hughâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sense of purpose that shaped beautiful Lincoln. More recently Liverpoolâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Anglican cathedral was all down to Giles Gilbert Scott.

Saturday morning shoppers had popped in to join a service in the Lady Chapel. Its liturgy echoed throughout the east end of the church. Hereford’s prominent single central tower was funded by a deluge of money coming in from pilgrims visiting the shrine of Bishop Thomas Cantiloupe who was beatified in 1320. The veneration of saints, and pilgrimages to the interment sites of a saint’s relics, were widespread. A church in possession of the relics of a popular saint enjoyed a source of income, as the faithful made donations in the hope that they might receive spiritual aid.

Like Ely to the south, Lincoln rises up from its surroundings. Three immense towers dominate the town. Bishop Remigius moved his diocese some 140 miles, all the way up here from Dorchester (on Thames) six years after the Norman Conquest.

Like Gloucester, down the road, it began as a Saxon Church until the Normans moved in. There is some exciting Early English work and important Gothic in the North Transept. More recently my artisthero John Piper has been hard at work here contributing three tapestries.

Inside? Inside we have tall, pale and Ikea-like, pared down Gothic. The nave stretches like a row of poplar trees. Pale stone, height and balance and eye-watering simplicity make this a very special cathedral. A foundation stone was laid in 1936. But work stopped with the outbreak of WWII and because of one thing and another was not resumed until 1952. The Cathedral Church of the Holy Spirit was consecrated in 1961. Less than an hour from our house, one is tempted to return for Holy Communion (BCP) very soon. 62

An earth tremor brought down much of the Norman work, however a rebuild incorporated the Norman towers in the western façade. This place is big, especially at the Crossing. Lincoln’s Choir screen (1290–1330) is virtuoso Early Decorated and quite breathtaking. At the very Eastern end is the Angel Choir to house St Hugh’s shrine, also magnum opus of Decorated Gothic.

Lichfield Lichfield sits on a little green, neat and nice. Again, it started out as a Saxon Church that was shoved to one side for the grand Romanesque gesture. At Lichfield they built up a head of steam in the 1100s, everything was on a grand scale. The choir, aisles and central tower are Norman Transitional into Early English, and concluded with three towers. Lichfield is a teeny bit swanky, it has the only two storey octagonal Chapter House (1249) in the country. It also has a pedilavium; situated in a thirteenth century corridor, a place built for the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday.

Photograph: Jungpionier

Here, high on Stag Hill, is a cathedral for the modern age. From the outside the building’s brick wrapping gives a noticeably industrial feel, perhaps a power station? Or are we close to a Lancashire mill? It looks over the Surrey landscape and the sweep of the A3.

Lincoln

Photograph: Roger Robinson

Guildford

Hereford

Stepping Inside In the Middle Ages these spaces were not the quiet, reverential places of worship we know today. In the central nave pilgrims chatted and shared tales. Doubtless Mr Henry Chaucer was hanging about, taking notes. Ah! The idea for a book methinks. Extravagantly carved stone screens kept the noise down, allowing priests and monks to worship and sing the Offices of the day. These Holy Places were elaborate and brightly coloured until all this was swept away during the Reformation. 70

Norwich

Liverpool Let’s talk about Giles. Aged 21, Giles Gilbert Scott (George’s son) entered and won the design competition, for a new cathedral in Liverpool. Until this point he had only designed a pipe rack. The good and the great of Liverpool were hesitant about their decision so Giles built the Lady Chapel as a starter, under supervision of G.F. Bodley, and together they had finished it by 1910.

Photograph © Richard Rogerson

A ten-minute walk from the Anglian Cathedral is ‘Paddy's Wigwam’, the nickname affectionately given to the mother church of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Liverpool. It is a perfect contrast to Giles Gilbert’s neo-Gothic. Sir Frederick Gibberd designed the present Cathedral, and building began in October 1962. Inside and out the place does have a ‘60’s polytechnic campus feel about it. It is an energetic place. The concrete, seating (benches in concentric circles) and psychedelic stained glass (John Piper) all work as one big Sergeant Pepper’s scheme, appropriate given the location.

The cathedral was finished in 1978, nearly two decades after Scott's death. Liverpool, like Coventry and Canterbury, looms large in the canon of our great church buildings. 78

The Romanesque style is beefy and strapping. Nowhere is this style more evident than in the broad shouldered shafts of the crossing, which carry the weight of that high spire! The detail on the nave’s columns is a sort of candy-twist spiral. Above us are one thousand one hundred roof bosses and some magnificent vaulting.

Manchester This church was built in the 1400s and with Chetham’s Hospital School is all part of the same Gothic Perpendicular scheme. There is some exciting medieval woodwork, especially in the choir stalls, the deep brown colour creates a nice gloomy feeling.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

The Cathedral Church of Christ is bigger than St Paul’s or Westminster Abbey. Blessed with the largest Gothic arches in the world, it almost overpowers with its height and breadth.

Norwich has the second highest spire in England. Dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, it rests on monastic foundations. Thirty years after the Norman Conquest, work began to create the best preserved Romanesque cathedral in England. As we entered through Cathedral Close, by the monk’s door, a single bell was calling the faithful to prayer.

The floor plan is wide. The chantry chapels with their screens were removed to create double aisles in the nave. This was done in the 1800s to accommodate more people. In 1847 the church became a cathedral. All the windows were blown out during the Blitz in 1940, and until the late 1960s, only two had been replaced, notably the Fire Window.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Photograph by calflier001

Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral

Saints for Cash A good set of relics ensured, at least in the Middle Ages, a steady flow of the Godly to venerate the venerable and pay for the opportunity. The money was put to good use: Canterbury became even grander; Hereford used their funding to build a new tower.

Ripon

Here my narrative does not open with another Romanesque acclamation. The west front of the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew has a triple Gothic entrance that is unique. The portico was built around 1380. There is additional lovely Perpendicular inside, especially at the very eastern end of the church.

Beneath the crossing at Ripon is what is left of a crypt AD 672; no other cathedral has anything as ancient under its stones. Originally St Wilfred, the missionary, returned from Rome and built his church on a basilican pattern. Every piece was swept away in 950. In 1080 the Normans moved in.

Photograph by Lewis Hulbert

Portsmouth

Romanesque is here because the Normans got to work in 1118 and by 1140 had most of it sorted. Much is still here for us to enjoy except the tower, replaced by a Decorated confection when its Norman forerunner became unsteady.

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford

The tower of Cathedral Church of St Thomas of Canterbury has long been a leading light to homecoming ships. The sea is very much part of this engaging church; its weather vain is a Golden Barque.

Photo by DAVID ILIFF License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Oxford, the spiritual home of Le CarrĂŠ and Charles Ryder, boasts one of the smallest Anglican cathedrals. Romanesque thanks to the Augustinian monks who started work in 1150, to build a monastery church. Henry VIII founded Christ Church college and the church became a cathedral. The Becket Window, c.1332, is the oldest in the cathedral with a rare panel showing the martyrdom of Thomas Becket. Christ Church is unique as it serves as a cathedral and a college chapel. 90

However Ripon is prized for its Early English and Transitional styles, there is a ripping example of the latter in the south transept wall with a mix of semi-circular and pointed arches. Sir Ninian Comper, a Scottish born architect and one of the last of the great Gothic Revival architects contributes an eastern reredos (1922).

On the sunny afternoon we visited, a small chamber orchestra was rehearsing for a concert that evening. The sun flooded through the windows of the nave, built on the plan of a Greek cross. There is a simple wooden block model, halfway up in a side aisle, that shows what we have is several churches in one: An early church, and Transitional chancel, some William and Mary Classical, and a cruciform west end (where the music played).

Photo by DAVID ILIFF License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Photographer: David Hawgood

Peterborough

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St Albans

Photograph by Prioryman

Alban was our first Christian martyr. His shrine was placed here in 429 and lies behind the 1484 high altar screen. It was formerly known as St Albans Abbey before it became a cathedral in 1877. It is the second longest cathedral in the United Kingdom (after Winchester).

Rochester

The church we see now started in 1077. Situated outside the Roman city of Verulamium there is Roman brickwork in the church’s tower and other parts of the building. This is where ‘Early English meets Decorated’ wrote Siân in the guidebook. The four bays in the south nave collapsed in 1323 and they only had ‘Decorated’ in stock for the rebuild.

The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary is guarded by a castle and sits close to the Thames estuary. We called in on the way home from Canterbury. We were received through a Romanesque door and tympanum, a semi-circular decorative surface that is part of the door.

Drawing in the Cathedral Photo by DAVID ILIFF License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

Striking about Rochester is a superb Romanesque nave; it survives because the medieval builders ran out of money in the 12thC. The plan was to turn the whole place Gothic. The transepts, central tower and eastern end of Rochester, including the quire, are seamless Early English; however the whopping nave remains Norman. Stand at the central crossing and you can see the join.

Each of the drawings in this book was made on the day of the visit. We usually entered each cathedral via the nave. While Sian strode purposefully towards the bookshop to buy the cathedral's guide, I would hunker down in a pew or more likely chair and begin to draw. As I made marks in my Moleskine, Siân, my wife would make her grand tour and then return to where I was scoop me up and show me those parts of particular interest. Colour was added to each drawing on the spot or more often afterwards, at home, a great method for bringing the whole visit back into sharp focus.

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Southwark

The Great Fire of London 1660 cleared the way for something new, and Sir Christopher Wren has given us the finest renaissance church in the land. Its dome is 365 feet high to the top of its cross, it is emblematic of the City of London.

Tucked away between wharves, railways arches and wine bars you will find the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie, London’s oldest Gothic building. It was a sunny day outside, spilling pale light into every crevice of this splendid House.

Photograph: Bellminster Boy

We entered through the familiar west front and like everyone else paid our £16 (excuse me!).

St Edmundsbury In 869 St Edmund (King of the Angles) died close to the town of Bury St Edmunds. A shrine was built with a round church. Subsequently an abbey was established and became the biggest Benedictine foundation in East Anglia. They went head to head with Norwich to build a bigger better Church.

Salisbury

St Paul’s has an expansive cruciform layout. An arresting baldacchino, high up, drapes itself over the choir and high altar. This is actually a recent addition (1958) based on a sketch by Wren. Every piece of sculpture, the ceilings and walls and floors all celebrate Baroque. We are dead lucky to have St Paul’s as the renaissance entry in the ‘English Cathedrals’ Roll of Honour’.

Here on a super-sized, manicured, bowling green sits Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The masons of Salisbury have excelled. The Chapel of the Holy Trinity, at the east end, is one masterpiece, a fearless assembly of willowy Purbeck marble pillars. The Chapter House is a similar flight of geometric fancy; this is ‘Decorated bravura’.

Photograph by Bernard Gagnon

However St James’ Church (the abbey church founded in 1121) only became a cathedral in 1914. It opened with some exciting new bits: north-west porch, a start made on a south walk of a cloister. In 1970, crossings with transepts were built, and a bright Choir adorned with banners. In April afternoon sunshine, with an orchestra and choir warming up for an evening’s performance, all was light, airy and new (and old at the same time). 114

Southwark is fortunate to have an Early English Retro-Choir. Arguably this area is the prettiest part of the Cathedral, a great feeling of space. It is hard to visualise it used as a pigsty at one stage! And also used as a Bishop’s court for trying heretics at another point in history. I made a drawing of the magnificent screen between the altar and the RetroChoir, Saints and Bishops adorned in Perpendicular glory. Do seek out Southwark and enjoy the space and peace.

Salisbury is the result of Bishop Richard le Poore’s successful lobbying of Pope Honorius III to move the church to a less damp and flood prone spot. Honorius III said yes in 1217 and hey presto, lovely Gothic, restored across the years but unbowed, set on a lovely lawn.

Photograph: Kevin Danks

Photo by DAVID ILIFF License: CC-BY-SA 3.0

St Paul’s Cathedral

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Photograph: Edward Webb

The west front stopped us in our tracks with its extravagant sculptured façade and confusion of niches. Once inside I had to make a drawing of the great scissor arches at the crossing. I have seen nothing like these before or since. The diocese (Bath and Wells) was created in 1244 so the Cathedral Church of Saint Andrew was perhaps the first English Gothic cathedral. Much of Wells is in the Decorated style, and contrasts from most other English medieval cathedrals, which have parts in the earlier beefy Norman style. The north transept gives admission to an exquisite chapter house. This is a perfect example of the Decorated style, there are delicate ball-flower decorations surrounding each window arch, and vault bosses with beautiful leaf designs.

Truro If Carlisle took us up to the top of England then Truro took us to the far western reaches. The Cathedral Church of St Mary the Virgin is a new foundation. Built between 1880 and 1910 Truro is a loyal piece of Gothic Revival on the site of the parish church of St Mary. It is one of only three cathedrals in the United Kingdom with three spires.

The Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Mary the Virgin loiters by the River Severn. George Gilbert Scott has been here too: Worcester was extensively restored from 1857–1874. The Victorians loved a clear view through a church; consequently 17th century screens and panelling were removed from Worcester’s Choir in 1864.

Winchester Back to muscular Romanesque! Here I was, gazing up at the north transept with its massive triple-decker tiering.

The Normans started work on this masterpiece in 1089 and work was completed by 1170. King John was buried here in 1216, and soon afterwards rebuilding in the Early English style began, starting at the east end and moving west (Decorated). The Black Death 1348 –1350 put a break on things. Work resumed (Perpendicular) in parts of the Nave.

Winchester is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Swithun. St Swithun’s shrine was moved around the church to several locations. Sadly it was destroyed during the Reformation. The Normans got to work only four years after their victory at Hastings. When they finished on the nave it was the longest cathedral in England. While in its current form it is shorter in length, but an outstanding sweep of Perpendicular, and at 556 feet it is still the longest.

Photograph: Philip Halling

Truro is a study in terracotta, and its treasures include a stone reredos with noble sculptures. As I made a drawing of this gorgeous screen, music from the bookshop filled the church, as a good lady of the parish appeared to beat time with her feather duster.

Worcester

http://www.wyrdlight.com Author: Antony McCallum

Wells

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Afterword Our cathedrals represent a rich diversity of form, colour and history. Pulling this collection of drawings together, some sixty pieces, has brought the whole experience of each visit back into sharp focus. Each drawing reopens the door to these holy places. On a temporary basis we were included in the life of each. We failed to find a favourite, which is as it should be. Although our first visit, to Canterbury, looking down its nave, remains a remarkable experience, perhaps love at first site for the cathedrals in England.

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The Cathedrals of England A Journey in drawings

An affectionate voyage around the country capturing on paper the glory of these very special places.

Arundel, Bristol, Canterbury, Carlisle, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, Durham, Ely, Exeter, Gloucester, Guildford, Hereford, Lichfield, Lincoln, Liverpool, Liverpool Metropolitan, Manchester, Norwich, Oxford, Christ Church, Peterborough, Portsmouth, Ripon, Rochester, St. Albans, St. Edmundsbury, St Paul's London, Salisbury, Southwark, Truro, Wells, Winchester and Worcester, each one is captured in lines and colours and accompanied with a few words of observation.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;I never weary of great churches. It is my favourite kind of mountain scenery. Mankind was never so happily inspired as when it made a cathedral.â&#x20AC;? ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

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