Salisbury Cathedral uncovered
Georgian Group Visit

Friday 11th October 2013

The sight of Salisbury Cathedral rearing in to view never fails to set my imagination on fire.

I spent my Gap Year in 2000/01 as Alto Choral Scholar at Lichfield Cathedral, with its three spires, 'The Ladies of the Vale', and this whet my already large appetite for ecclesiastical architecture. Salisbury is a great amongst the Cathedrals of England, and what a thrill it was to see back-stage, down and up, around this masterpiece of Mediaeval building.

                     The cliff-like east end of Salisbury Cathedral 

We clambered up various tiny and vertiginous passages and spiral staircases to arrive high above the Nave on the west gallery. The uniformity of the Cathedral is almost unique in England as Salisbury was a new foundation on this site, so the Cathedral was built afresh in the noble Early English style.

                                      The Nave from the west gallery

Next stop, and umpteen stairs later is the roof space above the Nave. The beams of the roof are made of oak from the time of Christ and the main beams are over forty feet long. The age of the wood and the reason for the building in the first place make the whole atmosphere of Salisbury deeply tangible.

                        The roof above the nave with the lime mortar-covered vaulting

Being in the roof space of a building of this scale is akin to being in the hull of an upturned ship. After the space above the Nave comes the great central tower, the now blank windows of which were once open and Wren, no less, reckoned the Mediaeval structural ironwork of the tower to be the finest in existence. 

Mediaeval ironwork above the later girders in the Central Tower

This is skyscraper architecture of another time and the experience of climbing the Cathedral is as thrilling as any ride at Disney World. I don't like heights, but Salisbury quickly puts that phobia in its place as there is not much choice...it is onwards and upwards, and the views are worth the scare!

After the final ascent one reaches the spire. A spider's web of wooden scaffolding towers above in an almost endless cone. What makes this construction even more amazing, if it can be, is that it is not at all structural but purely for the building and maintenance of the great spire. It is like Esher at his most mad, but this is real!

The views from the parapet of the Central Tower are breathtaking; there is the City of Salisbury, once its own World ruled by its Bishop, the ancient city of old Sarum and The Close, with its many mansions.

                     Oliver Gerrish holding on for dear life!

From this space one enters the eastern roof space and the Eastern Crossing roof space, much of which is Georgian work and Wren's posts and gallows brackets are still there in the North Eastern Transept.

Salisbury Cathedral was built partly because of 'cathedral envy', as Winchester, a giant amongst the cathedrals, was being rebuilt in a very grand manner. Old Sarum and its Norman Cathedral were abandoned and Salisbury Cathedral built. The foundation stone was laid in the east in 1220 and the great building we see today, apart from the Central Tower and Spire, was finished in just thirty years. There was also a freestanding bell tower, a great rarity, which Wyatt (often known as 'the cathedral destoryer') demolished in 1790.

                                  Salisbury Cathedral with its bell tower

Salisbury also boasts the World's oldest working clock from circa 1386, which was built in Belgium. This clock was once housed in the bell tower. Wyatt also removed two chantries, the stonework of one of which is now along the walls of the Lady Chapel. He demolished the Pulpitum too. The Georgians were perhaps not the best friends of Salisbury Cathedral.

At Salisbury all the windows are in timber frames and in seventeen different patterns of grisaille, which is unique to Salisbury. 

                           Newly carved corbels and gargoyles for the Cathedral

Salisbury Cathedral has to be seen and explored to be believed. This utterly un-Georgian masterpiece was an utter thrill and I won't forget clambering around it for a very long time!!

For more information on Salisbury Cathedral please go to:-

http://www.salisburycathedral.org.uk

...and on The Georgian Group:-

www.georgiangroup.org.uk

and a bit on me, talking about architecture in Britain in general...:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcLYkJOmooY

All photographs in this blog are copyright to Oliver Gerrish. Please ask before using them.