Catholic and Loving it!

Ella and I have visited a fair few religious buildings this year. Our St. John Fisher and St. Thomas More pilgrimage took us to St Charles in Hull, St Mary's Beverley and Beverley Minster. Our practice trip to Durham took us to Durham Cathedral and our North Yorkshire Moors Challenge took us to Malton Priory, Whitby Abbey, Pickering Parish Church, Byland Abbey and Rievaulx Abbey. I visited Exeter Cathedral when I was a student here, quite a few times. It was nice to wander through on my way to do my weekly shopping.

The first thing you notice about Exeter Cathedral when compared with basically every other Cathedral in England is the positioning of the towers. Every English Cathedral I have seen has three towers, one large central tower and two smaller towers. Often the large central tower is missing as on Beverley Minster and often (as at York Minster, Canterbury Cathedral, Durham Catherdral, etc) it is present. Never have I seen the two towers halfway along the building except in Exeter.

I took the photo above from the top floor of Debenhams over the rooftops of Exeter. You can see how the two towers, are halfway along the buildings length. The roof running in between contains the longest vaulted ceiling in England. Why so long? Because unlike other English Cathedrals, the roof runs all the way from one end to the other.

The towers... the Norman towers... the beautiful Norman towers. They are fine fine examples of Norman architecture. No clever elegant stonework here, just brute force rock upon rock piled high in to the sky.

But wait, do my eyes deceive me? I seem to see a gothic window. Did the Normans get ahead of themselves? No. The two Norman towers were part of an earlier Cathedral (oh how I wish it were still there) which was demolished to make way for the new Cathedral. The towers form the trancepts of the new Cathedral and the stonemasons with their newfangled modern techniques punched a hole in the tower wall for a gothic archway with rose(ish) window. The result looks a little out of place on the outside but adds light inside (which is a good thing).

The next thing to notice about the Cathedral is the magnificent screen on the west face. Rows and rows of statues adorn this side of the Cathedral. Sadly, many are in a sorry state of repair. Not the fault of the Cathedral staff, no, the fault of Oliver Cromwell and his iconoclastic chums. Those fellows were anti-imagery but also rather lazy so the higher up statues are unscathed. Unfortunately the lower down ones such as these angels took a beating...

Photography inside the Cathedral is forbidden. Not totally forbidden like in Durham, just forbidden unless you pay for a photography pass forbidden. I paid one shiny pound for a photography pass which is the best pound I have spent in ages. Note to Exeter Cathedral: I would have paid £5. Gladly. Exeter Cathedral has the least imposing donation request system I have seen, a kindly lady gave us a leaflet and invited us to make a donation after our visit if we enjoyed the Cathedral. Given the number of times I have visited for free as a student we donated gladly and in hindsight I feel bad for not giving more. Maybe next time.

The level of light inside the Cathedral is superb. What Norman architechture acheives with materials Gothic makes up for in spaces. The Gothic arch allows for gigger gaps in the masonry and more light shines through. With no towers to support the walls of Exeter cathedral can be lighter still. The result is a space that is almost as well lit as being outdoors.

We began by walking along the south aisle and enjoying some of the windows. Most of the stained glass in Exeter Cathedral sadly isn't very old, smashed as it was by German bombs in the Second World War. Still, the replacements were (fortunately) replaced before the madness of modernity and are quite tasteful including St. Jerome, St. Augustine and St. Gregory. Always good to see Popes in Anglican Cathedrals.

One of windows shows Exeter Cathedral being offered up to Christ during the bombing of Exeter...

In the south trancept there are some huuge organ pipes:

Heading across to the north trancept we find the Exeter Clock. The clock is really cool:

The oldest parts of the clock date from 1484, the blue fleur-de-lys goes around once every twenty-four hours. The inner circle shows the phases of the moon and it's position in the lunar cycle. The upper part I am told is newer and shows the minutes. Medieval clocks from 1484 are fantastic.

Below the clock in the north trancept is a temporary structure. Usually, these are modern art type things but today it's the bible room. Somebody has built a plywood room and then taken all the pages from a bible and pasted them on the walls. You might think a room big enough to house the entire Bible on it's walls would be massive but it isn't, it's actually quite small and makes you think you could probably read it in a day.

As in any Cathedral, most of the money has been spent on the choir of the Cathedral, the bit the pheasants didn't have access too. In this part of the Cathedral the ceiling is still painted and is amazing:

Would that it were all painted. Also painted are some stunning tombs:

Leona, of course, liked the Lion:

We had a great time exploring this marvelous building. I could go on for hours, I havent't mentioned the organ or the screen below it with the paintings and the detail of the pulpit or the chapel of St. James which was bombed during the war and now has a particularly modern but still very exciting stained glass window of St. George slaying the Dragon which I haven't shown you a picture of... oh go on then...

How to sum up? The raw strength of the Norman towers with the magesty of the gothic body of the Cathedral makes for an odd combination. It's not particularly tall and towering, it even looks a little stumpy from the outside. Still, I wouldn't have it any other way. It's a great Cathedral and it's wonderful to see something a little different.

Oh, and don't forget to have Devon cream teas in the refectory. Deeeeee... licious.