Salisbury Cathedral, Part B, Anglophile Friday

Here we are, back at Salisbury Cathedral for Part B, the interior.  See last week's Anglophile Friday for Part A. The exterior of the cathedral is really quite spectacular. And although we marvel at the architecture of these English cathedrals,  we must bear in mind that they were built to be houses of worship, places where the Christian community gathers to worship King Jesus, Lord of the universe. Still true today, Salisbury Cathedral's mission is worship and outreach.

At the back of the nave, the first thing you can't miss is the beautiful, modern baptismal font, 'living water,' by William Pye. It was consecrated on September 28, 2008, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the 750th anniversary of the original consecration of the cathedral.  Designed to be cruciform in shape, it is a beautiful work of art.

The font is nearly 10' wide in order to allow for total immersion baptism, which I'm certain is more convenient than having to march down to the River Avon. The original white alabaster font was rescued by a visiting rector from South Australia, and taken to his church there. I like knowing that rather than being discarded,  it's being used in another part of the world.

Now we have several shots of the nave and quire with their beautiful ceilings and columns.

Pulpit near entrance to the quire

Transept, viewing the quire ceiling on the left, nave and upper gallery on right.

Rib Vault Ceiling of the Quire

Scissor Arch

'In Memory of the Choristers of this Cathedral Church and other Members of the Cathedral School who fell in the World Wars 1914-1918 and 1939-1945.'

 Saints Sculptures

Quire

The fan vaulted ceiling of the chapter house

rises from a single column.

 The Trinity Chapel was the first part of the cathedral
to be completed. It was consecrated in 1225.
Its location is behind the altar, at the east end of the cathedral.

Prisoner of Conscience window, commissioned in the late 1970s,
'reflecting a Christian response to worldwide violence and injustice.'

I have decided to add a Part C to my Salisbury Cathedral posts, because I'm afraid there are several more photos of some interesting things I'd like to include, but they would make this post far too long. So next week, I hope you'll join me for Part C of Salisbury Cathedral, Anglophile Friday.

Oh. And I neglected to mention in last week's post that this cathedral, the foundation stones of which were laid in 1220, is the 'new' cathedral. I'll try to come up with a summary paragraph about Old Sarum by next week. :-)  Has anyone read the book Sarum: The Novel of England by Rutherfurd?  I was wondering if it was worth reading.

Recognizing my tendency to ramble when there's a keyboard under my fingers, I'll just stop here and wish you all a great weekend.

***

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Winter in Hodgepodge, Wisconsin

Maple seeds, winter

Fence west of Anderson's

Finches at the feeder

It took them about a week to find it.

AND NOW...

Join Joyce and the Gang

for

She writes the questions;

we write the answers.

Plug them into your own blog

and join in!

1. Share a winter memory from your childhood.

I remember Mom taking this photo just

after unhitching the team of dinosaurs from our sleigh.

Snowbanks were huge, and that's not just because I was little. They were huge, a lot like the snowbanks of March, 2014. We spent a lot of time playing on the snowbanks, carving out houses, thrones, plates and bowls of snow. Wisconsin children had rosy cheeks.

Snowbanks near our house, March of 2014

Snow caves, January 2011

I realize that bloggers from the east coast are reeling from the huge, devastating storm of the weekend.  I heard one guy on the news say, 'We got all of winter at one time.' It will be no quick and easy task to dig out from all that snow.

2. What was on your blog this time last year? (Besides the Hodgepodge of course!) If you weren't blogging, what in the world were you doing with all that free time?

I looked back through my files and find that my blog is pretty much the same then as now: Barns, Fences, Grandkids, Snow, Churches, Quotations from favorite authors, Odds and Ends. I don't have as many recipe posts these days. That's probably because I've already posted nearly everything I know how to make.  I've been blogging for over six years! For a look back at the 28th of January last year, it was:

A Heart-melting Hodgepodge.

 From January 28, 2015 blog post
Waiting for Dad

3. Ellen Goodman is quoted as saying, 'We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives...not looking for flaws, but for potential.' 

Do you see more flaws or more potential in your life at the start of a new year? Have you done anything specific this month to address either one? Does the new year truly begin for you on January 1, or is there some other month of the year that feels like a fresh start and new beginning?

I guess I'm not as philosophical as Ellen. But in regard to when the new year begins, in Wisconsin, it feels like the new year begins on April 1. From December 26 through March 31, we're mostly waiting... April is full of expectation, the snow is usually gone, kids are once again playing baseball, and May with all its glorious greenness is just around the corner.

Grandsons visiting us in April of 2013

I take it all back. I just ran across the photo (above), taken in April of 2013. So let's make that May 1. We did get a blizzard in May of 2013, but that was an odd year.

 Deer in the alfalfa field,

May 5, 2013

4. Who's an athlete you admire or respect and why?

The amount of time I'm spending trying to even think of any athlete is an indication, I guess, that I'm not big into athletics. When I was younger, I could have told you the batting averages of all the important baseball players, but that was back when we had the Milwaukee Braves and I was also a fan of the New York Yankees and the San Francisco Giants. Today it seems much more about money and politics and scandal.

 No cream, thank you.

5. Do you like cream in your coffee? Whipped cream on your pumpkin pie? Cream cheese on a bagel? Sour cream on a baked potato? Cream of wheat for breakfast? Have you ever had a scone with clotted cream? Of all the creamy foods mentioned, which one sounds most appealing to you right this very minute?

I used to use cream in my coffee, but haven't for about four years. I have a friend who said that she simply stopped using it [and surprisingly, the earth did not stop turning]. So I decided to try that too. Cold turkey. I've survived. I only add a wee bit of cream if the coffee is bitter, but I try to avoid bitter coffee.  Of all the above-listed items, I would probably choose cream cheese on a toasted onion bagel, but I haven't had one of those for a long, long time, probably not since we lived in Pennsylvania where they really knew how to make bagels.

 Bagels, made by our SIL who also knows how to make bagels!

6. Where were you last kept waiting for 'hours on end'? Or for what felt like hours on end? How well did you cope?

I don't even remember the last time, but it would have been B.K. (Before Kindle.) I do remember the rare times that I forgot to take a book along and ended up waiting for you-know-who for what DID seem like hours. I would read everything, anything, I could get my hands on, like any bit of paper that happened to be in the glove compartment or in the side pockets of the vehicle or the labels on the inside of my gloves, or ANYTHING at all!  Now I take my Kindle and have so many options. I love it. If the grid ever goes down, I will miss my Kindle the most (well, maybe after running water.)


7. Believe it or not, when next week's Hodgepodge rolls around it will be February. Huh?!? Bid adieu here to January in seven words or less.

January: Kinder than usual. Such a relief!

January's also been filled with grandkids, which has been wonderful!

 Two weeks ago, his older brother spent the week with us.

This week, littlest brother is staying with us, and homeschooling.

We met this sweet little five year old and his dad in Hudson, not quite halfway between their home in Minnesota and ours in Wisconsin. As he was riding with us to our house, which was still about another hour and a half away, this was part of the conversation:

G:  'You guys live in the middle of nowhere!'

Grandpa:  'So do you.'

G:  'No, I live in a free country!'

I texted his mom today, warning her that he wants a hedgehog when he returns home. I made the mistake of showing him some YouTube videos of hedgehogs, after reading The Tale of Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle. 

8.  Insert your own random thought here.

There's a lot of random in my life right now, and I don't know where to begin. I think I'll put in another photo I took recently.

Taken on that trip to 'the middle of nowhere'

***

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Salisbury Cathedral, Part A - Anglophile Friday

Salisbury Cathedral

 Salisbury, just 1 hr.24 min. from London's Waterloo Train Station,

and just a large stone's throw from...

 ...but that's another story for another day.

There were a few things that I found most notable about Salisbury Cathedral. The amazingly tall spire, the medieval clock, the Magna Carta, the baptismal font...okay, I guess there were several things. But today we'll start with the exterior of the cathedral, and its remarkable spire.

Salisbury Cathedral, west front

The foundation stones for Salisbury Cathedral were laid in 1220, and most of the main work on the cathedral was completed within 40 years. That is amazing, in itself! The spire was added later.

'The main body of the cathedral was finished by the consecration on 29 September 1258. But the whole project also included the West Front, the Cloisters, the Chapter House, and the (now demolished) detached Bell Tower, which stood between the High Street Gate and the Cathedral. All of these were probably completed by 1266.'

Salisbury Cathedral, tower and spire
Tallest spire in England - 404 feet!

'...the Cathedral was enlarged upwards between 1300 and 1320, by the incomparable tower and spire. This development was not unique to Salisbury – the cathedrals in London (old St Paul’s) and Lincoln both had taller spires, if only of timber and lead – but this one has proved the longest-lived, and since the late 16^th century has been the tallest in England, standing at 404 ft/123m. It seems likely the spire was severely damaged within a few years of completion, and so needed repairs for which the still-existing internal scaffolding was built.'

So how'd you like to be the one climbing up the internal scaffolding to work on that spire?! 

  

Today, a lunatic conservator climbs out onto the outside of the spire and scales his way to the top to change the anemometer.  If you're squeamish about heights, I wouldn't recommend that you watch the following short video. But if your curiosity is greater than your fear of heights, be sure to watch it. It's incredible. BTW, There's no amount of money that could entice me to take that job. And I do hope he gets paid a ton!

'In 1921 the weather vane was removed from the top of the spire and replaced with a cross. The cross you can see on top of the spire today was made in 1950 and is 12’ high. It is made of copper with brass finials protruding from each point of the cross.' 

Another interesting bit about the spire, is that in the years following WWII, some were wondering why Salisbury hadn't been bombed. It seems that the German Luftwaffe, approaching from the south, had used Salisbury Cathedral as a landmark to guide them as they made their way to more strategic targets, for example, turning northeast toward London.

 Salisbury Cathedral, buttresses and cloister

Such intricate stonework!

Are these all starting to look alike? :-)

Sitting on eighty acres, Salisbury Cathedral has the largest cathedral close of all cathedrals in England. Also, unlike other cathedrals, it has no crypt because it rests so close to the water table. In fact, while Mr. C. was off wandering about the cathedral, he saw a guide lift a cover from a hole in the floor and use a rod to measure how far they were from the water. It measured FOUR FEET!

Cathedral, north side:

"A cloister is a covered walk, open gallery, or open arcade running along the walls of buildings and forming a quadrangle or garth." (garden)

And a couple photos of the cloister garth below.  I wonder if Garth Williams knew that his name meant 'garden.' I would mention Garth Brooks, but I don't want you to have to live with that word association.

Cloister Garth

There are so many more photos of Salisbury Cathedral in my photo files*, but we'll stop with these for today. (I can hear you breathing a sigh of relief.) I think we'll go indoors next time. It's an amazing building. (And yes, I know I use the word 'amazing' far too often. But really...)

All information in quotations is from the cathedral's website, www.SalisburyCathedral.org.uk, with the exception of the definition of cloister. That's from Wikipedia.

There is so much more information on the cathedral website. I hope you'll visit!

My favorite photo is yet to come, in the interior.


*Aren't we all so grateful for camera cards! Imagine what it would have cost to have about 3,000 photos (on film) developed, and not know how they were going to turn out until they were printed! Does anyone out there remember film??? or is it just me.

***

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(Downton Abbey inspired, of course)

Matthew is going to come back. He was just faking it, I'm sure.
 

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Have a great weekend, everyone!