A window onto the splendid Salisbury Cathedral
This magnificent Gothic Cathedral has a height of 403 feet and can be seen from all directions as you approach the city.
Salisbury cathedral has the tallest spire in Britain and is an architectural mass of columns and stonemasonry.
I spent a few days at a Landmark Trust Apartment within the charming Cathedral Close and challenged myself to capture the
sheer grandeur of the setting and this wonderful medieval building in photographs.
Or hanging out the window gave me this view...
I had a cup of tea and a settle down and then walked around the Cathedral Square and the base of the massive floodlit building.
You may know that the Peregrine Falcons nest on the cathedral's mighty edifice. This year was no exception and 4 chicks were born.
There are records of them nesting here between 1864 and 1953, after which there was a long period of absence caused by persecution and the use of pesticides (like DDT).
In 2014 a mated pair nested, producing and fledging four chicks successfully in a nestbox built by the Works Yard team. Since then peregrines have hatched and fledged from the Tower every year except for 2018, when a territorial battle between two females prevented laying.
Poor Dad!
The names of the Peregrine chicks was decided after members of the public were invited to vote. it was decided to restrict names associated with Salisbury, the cathedral or medicine.
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Flo - for Florence Nightingale, the 'Lady with the Lamp' who grew up nearby in Wellow and nurse in the Crimean War.
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Eliza - for Dr Elizabeth Garret Anderson, who, in 1865, became the first female doctor registered in Britain
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Xander - for Sir Alexander Fleming, the Scottish microbiologist and physician who discovered penicillin
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Teddy - for Dr Edward Jenner, who created the first vaccine in 1796 for smallpox
An amusing happening occurred whilst I was there although I didn't witness it.
One of the fledgling chicks started to fly and realised it couldn't reach the giddy heights of the nest again. It flopped into the refectory garden where visitors started to feed it with cake and biscuits!
The chick was rescued and taken back up to its nesting site to be reunited with brothers and sisters again and to proceed with adulthood as normal.
In past times I reckon there was some pilfering going on because there are some missing statues on the right flank. The plinths are there but the figures are missing.
I was told that the statuary adorning the west flank are as follows.
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2.1 Tier 1: The Vesica.
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2.2 Tier 2: The Angels.
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2.3 Tier 3: Old Testament Patriarchs and Prophets.
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2.4 Tier 4: Apostles.
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2.5 Tier 5: Doctors, Virgins and Martyrs.
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2.6 Tier 6: Worthies belonging to the English Church, many with a local connection.
Perhaps the missing pieces are because the angels have run off with some of the local worthies or the virgins with the doctors.
I don't know the answer but its amusing to ruminate.
Salisbury Cathedral is known for having the largest Cloister Garden in Britain
Please hang on for 5 seconds to see three interior shots unfold
What is noticeable in these pictures is that the Cathedral is Covid Compliant and therefore all the seating, pews, tables and clustering areas have been moved.
in fact the East Wing has been used as a covid jabbing centre for the community.
These artistic sculptures around the frieze below tell biblical stories and some show good humour
Below - This is a real pillar of the church !
It can be found in The Chapter House which displays the best-preserved of the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta.
Below - This is such fun as it is a Living Font full of moving water that provides a perfect reflection of the church architecture.
It really is awe inspiring and so jolly clever.
This is taken directly from the artist creator's website, William Pye , https://www.williampye.com/works/salisbury-cathedral-font
Water is the predominant feature of this work, its surface reflecting and extending the surrounding architecture, while four smooth filaments of water pass through spouts at each of the four corners of a bronze vessel and disappear through a bronze grating set into the floor.
The base is clad in Purbeck stone. Here two contrasting aspects of water are woven seamlessly together: stillness expressed in the reflecting surface, and the flow and movement though the spouts expressing its essential life giving properties.
The shape was developed from a square footprint. A cruciform shape is created by scooping out radiused sections of the four sides. This immediately accentuates the directional flow of water, channelling it towards the corners which at the same time provide obvious and natural positioning within the embrace of the bronze vessel for priest and candidate for baptism.
and finally i look upward to admire the beams and arches and marvel about how it all fits in place.
This is quite mindblowing:
In the UK, if you wish to build a house in standard soil, the typical depth of foundation will be about 1 metre.
Read below for the depth of foundations of this cathedral which was built in 1220/1320 AD.
The foundations of the cathedral are only 28 inches (just over 700mm) deep and built on a barely drained swamp. They were not built to withstand the additional 6,500 tonnes supplied by the spire. Slowly but surely the spire moved out of alignment as you can see today by looking up along the Purbeck marble columns.
It was soon found that the cause of the movement was variation in the water below the cathedral, so a complex sluice system was developed to regulate the water from the nearby stream. Twice a day a cap is lifted on the floor beneath the spire and a dipstick inserted to measure the level of the water.
You could be excused for thinking this snippet was written on April 1st but it is true.
My resource is the nicely presented website https://thefogwatch.com/the-miracle-of-salisbury-cathedral/
which is an excellent site to dip into for interesting world sites.
No, this is not as a result of poor foundations, it was me being arty farty with my camera pointing skywards.
Finally, here are 6 of my favourite images of the cathedral which took much time to compose but gave me such pleasure.
I hope you like them too.
Thank you for looking at these images. The Cathedral is a wonderful place to visit and I found it inspiring at every level.
At the end of the day, this is a place of worship and during my visit at a time of restricted access without pews, seats, tables and with the lack of overseas visitors, the 2 hourly public prayer was just to a small handful of lucky people. It took on a special resonance and proved very moving .
The Man with the Mighty Tripod ~ Ken
