Postcards from the Edge (with apologies to Princess Leia..er..Carrie Fisher)

I know, I know, I said I was going to do trees, and I will, I promise. 

But then, out of the murk that I laughingly call my conscious mind, came a "suppose".

One of the happiest things about traveling (if you're me) involves post cards.  Face it - they're generally beautifully done and present everything about an object or a place in a professional manner (well, I'll exclude those with jackalopes and big mouthed bass on 'em, just for this entry).

And there are places (Durham Cathedral for one) where general picture taking is verboten.  So Postcards have to do.  AND, if you're like me (heaven help you), there are certain things (old stained glass is one) that need to be photographed by a camera that weighs almost as much as the person toting it. 

Soo, in no paraticujlar order (random is fun!  Remember that - it will be your mantra going forward) here are a few of the postcards that I collected whilst roving through England.  I have a herd more (postcards come in herds or decks,  especially the postcards that are all connected together). but I'm not going to inflict them on you unless I relocate that mean streak I lost yesterday morning whilst doing the laundry.  (No, mean streaks don't turn laundry pink.  They turn it dapple.)

The picture of Salisbury Cathderal (the first one I'll post up here) is a small print sized photograph by Mr. Peter Brown of Amesbury, Wilts.

This looks like a detailed painting, but, indeed, isn't.  It's entitled Salisbuy Cathedral - Summer Flowers.

The remainder of the pictures are postcards - I will jot the company that produced the card when I can find it somewhere on the back.

The windows in Durham Cathedral suffered major damage during the reformation and at the hands of "restorers" in the 19th century.  Adoration of saints was considered abominable by the Protestors (Protestants) of the reformation - so many windows were damaged or destroyed.

During the 19th century, techniques used to retorn glass weren't well developed, so such beautiful creations as the rose window were destroyed instead of renovated.  Much of the glass is 19t century, therrfore, rather than early, period glass.

This window has three sections:
The Lord is my shepherd, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and, at the bottom, Feed my sheep, feed my lambs.

 From Salisbury Cathdral, date 1980, photograph by RJL Smith

This is the Prisoners of Conscience window.  Although we were able to take pictures in Salisbury, the idea of attempting to capture all the detail of this window was overwhelming.  To see the window in place is to be struck by the blues of every shade that make it up.

This window represents people who stand up for truth, no matter what persecution they may endure.  Its theme is as old as man himself. 

This is the St. Nicholas window from 1899.  It was placed in honor of WIlliam Charles Lake, Dean of Durham Cathedral from 1869 through 1894.

The Dean of the Cathedral (he would be known as the Very Reverend such and so)is the second highest dignitary of the people who look after the Cathedral and its doings: he directs the life and work of the cathedral.  The Canon  (who serves as Sub-Dean and Precentor and who is known as The Reverend Canon Dr. Such and so) is in charge of the liturgy.

There is an entire staff that administers the church, its libraries, etc.  etc.  Interestingly, the most ancient role on the staff belongs not to the Bishop or the Canon or the Preceentor.  The  Sacrist and Seccentor, who is a Minor Canon,  is the oldest of duties, the office dating back to the very earliest years of Durham Cathedral.

This is an exterior shot of Durham in the autumn.  It was done by Heritage House Media.  I have other pictures of the exterior of Durham, some done by me (for which I hope you will forgive me) and some done by my gentle friend Karen.  They'll be in another post.

This is The Daily Bread window in Durham Cathedral.  It was commissioned by Marks and Spencer and installed in 1984 on the centenary of the company's founding.  It represents the last supper.  The post card is a knock out, but the window?  Stunning!  And, even though it's relatively modern, it fits right in with everything else just fine.

This is the Millenium Window from Durham.  The picture was taken and published by Jarrold Publishing.

The window itself depicts some of the happenings of the 1000 years between the establishment of Durham and 1995 when the window was installed.  Yup - that would be your basic millennium, folks.  I still can't get my mind around the actual age of the Cathedrawl any more than I could at York or Salisbury.  One thousand years.  It boggles the mind (well, it boggles my mind...)

This is the oldest of the chalk down carvings in England, and also the biggest.  This is the White Horse of Uffington in Oxfordshire.  The image's trenches were first scraped through to the chalk underlayment and filled with white chalk rubble between 1200 and 700 BCE (Before the Common Era).  It's been maintained by the residents of the area ever since.

There are a lot of theories as to why the horse and others like it were created since the only way to clearly see that it's a horse is from the air.  Border between tribes?  Some sort of altar to Belinos, a Celtic Sun God?
A representation of Epona, the horse god of the Celts?  It's impossible to know, so feel free to speculate all you'd like.

There are other horses carved in other parts of England, although most of them date within the last two or three hundred years.  Still, they brighten the landscape and make people pause and think, hopefully about whomever made them and why...

What the h-e-double hockey sticks, you ask, startled.  This is a world Heritage Site.  For dinosaur enthusiasts and lovers of the history of dinosaur collecting, this is one of the most fascinating places on the planet - Burgess Shale, eat your heart out!!!!  (Not seriously - the Burgess Shale in Canada is totally excellent as well).

Anyway, it was here that, during her lifetime, Mary Anning (1799-1847) daughter of a fossil enthusiast, made a very small name for herself (she being (a) a woman and (b) lower class in a time when gentlemen with money made up the larger number of naturalists, as they were generally known) by oh...hmmm...let me see -finding and assembling the first specimen in Britain of an Icthyosaurus, the first nearly complete skeleton of a Plesisausaur, the first British skeleton of a pteradactyl, and on and on.  This was long before the days of paleological safaris - she walked along the sea at Broadbench, among other places, at low tide and searched for bones, hauled them back to her family home and preserved them as well as she could.  The bones were sold to institutions by a broker, but at least Ms. Anning received compensation for what was literally a life threatening pursuuit of knowledge.  By the decade before the end of her life, she was recognized for her contributions to the still very young science of paleontology.

The Post Card, which is from a series called Britain from the Air published by the Royal Geographical Society and the Ordnance Survey, shows the famous, Jurassic (watch out for the Allosaurs!  well, not now, of course) Coast, which includes Mary Anning's home town of Lyme Regis.  The unique appearance is a result of the presence of Kimmeridge Clay, which cracks and shatters along the planes of the cracks.  When one walks here, one is walking back over millions upon millions of years.  I am SO going to go there!

This, of course, is Stonehenge.  Stonehenge is well known to millions of people, so I'm not going to belabor the point and drive you nuts with discussions of the latest and greatest archaeological work on the site.  I think it's most excellent, but I'm a bit stodgy...or something.  This photograh was taken by Nigel Ware and turned into a post card by J. Salmon Ltd.

There are other henges in England.  Indeed, there are other henges within a short drive of Stonehenge.  One such is Avebury.  And that will be the topic of the next post.  Which will be, I have a feeling, later tonight, since I have a short term run to get the granddaughter and play with her for awhile!!!!!

I can now send postcards that I have photographed (the scanner didn't work with them for some reason.  The jpeg that resulted had properties that gave my computer heartburn) and still have the images to remember!  How most exccellently cool is THAT?

More later!!!!

Salisbury Part 37 (You mean you didn't read the 34 others? Shame on you!)

Now that I've got you looking for the other parts (well, not really, you know me well enough), I'm going to settle myself and do what little I can to show you the inside of Salisbury Cathedral.  And I must emphasize the little.  I could have taken about 400 pictures and then been a bit short in terms of detail.  As it was, I was so busy standing there with my mouth hanging open going "Oh my - oh my" that I almost forgot to take any!

Some simple dimensions for you:



The length of the the Interior:   449 feet (your basic American football field is 100 yards - 300 feet)
Width excluding the transepts (see above): 78 feet
Width with transepts:  204 feet
Height to the ceiling of the nave:  85 feet.  Consider that most homes have 8 foot ceilings and you'll get the general idea, but not the real experience.
Height to the ceiling of the vault:  85 feet excluding the Trinity Chapel.
Height of the Spire:   404 feet.

They're really just numbers until you're there in front of the building staring up, or tripping over the front door (because you're staring up).  And then it hits you like a ton of stone (several tonnes, actually).  And there's nothing to say but "Oh my", very quietly.

The Interior - taking a picture of the entire interior at the same time is, from a practical standpoint, impossible for people like me who do not have a professional camera to rely on.  So, again, I have borrowed from google images.  All I can ask of you is that you imagine 84 feet straight up and how many ever feet you can come up with along the floor. 

  

The second picture was taken standing in the area where the choir practices and looking back the other way.  The first picture is showing the choir area and the lecturn to the left and going up the stairs. No, I didn't climb to the pulpit.  I get air sick, and, besides, it would have been rude. Even for me

Now, once one passes into the relatively dark interior and looks across the nave, one of the first things that is visible is this!

Anyone have an idea as far as what it is?  And no, it's not a better mousetrap (although, given the size, it might be a better moose trap!)

Now, for the faint of heart, suffice it to say that the contraption is a clock. No moose or mice were harmed in the creation of this clock.  Not only that, this is a clock that was made no later than 1386 and in all probability before.  As the sign says, it didn't tell hours and minutes.  It marked the passage of the hour by ringing a bell that was attached to it and is currently located in the Cathedral Roof Space (i.e., it's attached by rope).

The clock works and was running in quite cheery clockish fashion when I took the picture before the sign above.  And, since it does work and given the building date, it is the oldest working clock in existence.

The entire cathedral is a lesson in history  -  from the stained glass windows to the various tombs and memorials, it's possible to read much about the world that saw the church evolve in the words and sculptures in this vast space. 

St. Osmund's remains are interred in Salisbury after having been moved from Old Sarum.  He's been moved about a bit inside the Cathedral but is currently near the Trinity Chapel.  No, you wouldn't be looking at bones.  This is the tomb:




There are tombs of knights and bishops, of children and the prime of life type folk, and there are memorials in stone and precious metal. 

This is Sir John Cheney.  Here's a sign about him.

Here's another perfectly wonderfulbit of sculpture of Giles of Bridport.

And his placard:

with a reflection right in the middle.  Giles of Bridport was consecrated in 1257, died 1262, but in that time founded the college of St. Nicholas de Vaux.  And, oh just for grins - was the Bishop of Salisbury.  Not a bad thing at all.

I don't know who this gentleman is other than that he's a bishop of Salisbury.  However, the sculpture is wonderful and the details priceless for anyone seeking a reference for clothing and decoration in the period.

Each figure has its own musical instrument, and the entire screen is in one of the side chapels (I AM going to go back and make my notes much better the second time!!!!). 

The carvings and the sculptures, inside and out, are not only a treat for the eyes, they're a form of entertainment and information for an age before the printing press and before even remote ancestors of the postal system (rapid maildelivery was lost with the fall of the Roman Empire).

There is glass, old and new and newer yet.  The glass above is quite old.  But not the oldest by far.

There is wood in every form and design, veneered and parqueted, marquetried, carved and shaped. 

From the floors to the ceilings, from nave to side chapels, all around you EVERYWHERE in grand silence, there is time watching you watching it.  And everything....slows....down...because you need that time to breathe and take stock of what you've seen, and of what you know you've missed. 

Quiet example:  in the ceiling below, the vaulting is called Fan Vaulting.  It wasn't known at the time that the cathedral was started.  But here it is used as the centures went on.

And, because this IS the 21st century, and because someone might not believe that there is still room to add and change things in this vastness?:

and

and

Which caused both me and Chris some confusion, but certainly piqued our curiosity. (This picture is from Google Images and is from an Art website from England.  The other two are my poor attempts at image capture).  If you want to see more of the statues, you can check them out in google by putting in Sean Henry - Conflux in Images or on the web spot.)

The name of the exhibit and exhibit it is, is Conflux - A Union of the Sacred and the Anonymous.  The sculptor is Sean Henry.  The statues are painted bronze and vary in sise from less that actual human size to much greater.  And they're in numerous places throughout the cathedral and the grounds. 

And, don't you know?  That's what this house of history and worship is - a meeting of the great whose names are remembered, and the thousands upon thousands of the anonymous who have built and rebuilt, sustained and visited and lived near or remembered from afar.

Not a bad place to visit on a July day.  Not a bad place at all.

OH - and, by the bye (I couldln't take a picture of it), just in passing, I also saw one of the four original Magna Cartas (the document was copied four times and King John signed it four times, there not being carbon paper or copies of the mechanical variety then).  And if you think I'm being blase about writing that?  It's because that many exclamation points and underscorings and capital letters and flourishes might be just a tad much to have to put up with!

Ahem - regaining my control (yup, sure), off I go....until the next wander in England - TREES!

Old Sarum, oooops, Salisbury!

Remember the map I posted in my first blog about this trip?  And then, last blog, I did a frighteningly rapid over view of Salisbury.  NOW I'm going to slow down a bit because I was getting motion sickness and all.

Old Sarum, you mutter.  What in the dickens is old Sarum?  From Google Earth, I have borrowed a picture.  Here it is below.  Looks kinda...er...under developed?  Or resting from too much development, I suppose.

What you are looking at is a classic motte and bailey site.

Briefly:  the motte (not moat) is the flattened mound in the center of the ditch you see.  The bailey is an enclosed courtyard, usually adjacent to a fort or a castle built on the motte. 

The term motte and bailey was not used during medieval times.  (It would be sort of like me calling the house I grew up in mid-century modern while I was growing up in it.  "Yes, I'm going to clean that bathrooms in my mid-century modern home."  Not happening so much.

Instead, I'm guessing that people back then said that they were going to market up in Sarum.  "Going to sell my chickens in t'market today."  The castle that was built by the Normans was used by Henry II Plantagenet and the Plantagenet kings.  (Recall the Lion in Winter or Becket, both of which starred Peter O'Toole as King Henry II, but at different times in his life.  Abstruse and totally inconsequential trivia that.)  The Plantagenets ruled England from 1154 through 1485. 

Sarum saw a number of different societies over the centuries.  And the first Salisbury cathedral was built at Sarum.  If you look at the picture, you can see the ruins of the foundation just off to the upper left away from the motte.

But archaeological explorations have revealed the presence of humans on this site since at least 3000 BCE. The Romans built a town here (mostly because they could, I'm sure...the Romans were rather fond of building things, and they did a great job of it.)

I'm not going to go on and on about the history of the area, mostly because (and this startles me every time) people are not all agog to hear every little detail.  Sooo...let's just get moved from Old Sarum to New Sarum.

New Sarum is a couple of miles from Old Sarum and the cathedral at Salisbury just happens to be built on a large anomoly - a wide bed of naturally occuring gravel provides drainage in an otherwise clay-y location.  In addition, it is the one place in what is now Salisbury where the supports needed to keep the cathedral intact could be sunk. 

Of course, there is a legend about it.  (Homework - go see if you can find the legend). 

By hook or by crook, the new cathedral located in New Sarum (soon to be called Salisbury) was begun in 1220. 

Remember, however, that building a cathedral required vast resources in terms of money, raw materials and manpower.  So, even though the cathedral was dedicated in 1258, major sections of the church itself as well as the cloisters and close and its wall were built over the next 250 years.  The fortunes of the cathedral reflected the fortunes of the times themselves, and major renovation has been done several times in the past as well as being on-going today.

So what's all the fuss about?

Hmmm

Here -

This is one facade of the cathedral - off to the left you can see the scaffolding enclosing part of the cathedral that's being cleaned and restored.  The major entrance to the cathedral is off to my right.

Because I'm the world's most idiotic thinker, I didn't get a good shot of the main entrance to the cathedral.  I therefore have borrowed a picture from a webpage called PlanetWare.

I DID however take a lot of pictures of the statuary on this entrance. Statues have been set into their niches over the centuries.  Another proof that the church is a living thing is the fact that there are empty niches waiting for someone else to occupy them.

The last picture is the outside view of a stained glass window...heh...nothing much to look at until you get inside.

Which (since it's going on midnight) we'll do tomorrow!  I leave you with some pretty flowers that were at one of the altars.

This arrangement was extremely tall and wide.  But it was also gorgeous.  Can't help it - loves the flowers!

Hasta manana, amigos!

Salisbury Part 1 or so

Now, everyone knows I'm completely allergic to doing things in any kind of order unless it's shoved down my throat.  Sooooo....I'm going to focus on Salisbury first.

Mostly because I can.  Heh...

First things first.  Some piccies (bet you thought I was going to do a history lesson.  Not yet - I'll sneak one in sort of sideways when you're lookin' at the piccies.)

Okey dokey!  The pictures above are a fair to middling cross section of the kind of picture I take when jet lagged.  No, not really.  Ignore me.  I'm really this wobbly in the picture making department ALL the time!!!!

The chimney pots (no, not chamber pots - I heard that!) fascinate me.  They come in all shapes and sizes and make the rooflines of places really interesting.  The other buildings are old, although I think (Chris, correct me if I'm wrong) that Nugg's 1268 is the most elderly.

And, as recently as the end of the twentieth century, no one really knew how old the building was!  It was only when a renovation was begun  and layers of exterior (and, I think, interior) plaster were peeled away that the age of the building became more obvious. 

As soon as it was clear that the renovators were dealing with something of great age, work was stopped and a license applied for to declare the building a landmark.  At the same time, those who have the rare gift of being able to research such things began their dig through the records.  They are not allergic to dust, paper fibres or the prospect of spending weeks trying to decipher clerical handwriting.  Bless 'em all!

There were other clues as to the age of the building.  For example, note that the outside timbers are more grey than dark brown or black.  That's because, early on, when beams were sealed, they were sealed with lime. 

Remember, of course, that the building was added on to, its front door moved, and any number of other changes made to it over the centuries.  That's the nature of the beast (Don't ask how many updates were made to the house I grew up in just while I was living there!).  However, the building visitors see today (besides being a functional business) dates back to the 13th century. 

I have just spent an hour updating my pictures because I thought I had lost about half of them.  I hadn't, but I hadn't followed my usual protocol with pictures and back ups, so I have to go in and make things well again.

I'm going to close this portion of today's blog with some pretty flowers.  Salisbury keeps itself all beautiful with flowers and a rather unique Dragon.

ENGLAND!!!!!!

Hullo!  I have returned from my most excellent trip to the UK!  I have met face to face folk who have suffered with my IM-ing and blogging for the last year or two, and they have not been damaged by the experience!  (I am sooo proud that I didn't cause any nervous tics or hysteria!!!). 

And I have taken pictures (surprise!).  Rather a great many pictures, but, again, we ARE talking about me, the novice digitalist here...

First off, just a brief note in regard to where exactly I went in England. 

Also, for the sake of all concerned, a map to go with the note. 

Admittedly, this is a LARGE-ish map.  But I wanted to be sure I didn't cause anyone eye strain...

This is England and Wales.  I was in England, although NEXT time....smiles cheekily.

So, find London - do you see it there?  Good.  I landed at Heathrow Airport, which is one of the two large airports serving the London area:  Gatwick is the other one. 

However, my eyes and travels turned away from London almost immediately.  My goal was to visit friends and to see their parts of England.  Visitng London is probably a lot like what I imagine visiting Washington DC is like, but with several more centuries of  historic buildings and stories and such.  I had decided I wouldn't attempt such a thing on my first foray to England.

I visited (and was completely overawed by) Salisbury, Oxford, Avebury, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Gateshead, Durham, and York.  If you want to take a second and locate them, you'll get an idea of where I was at any particular point in time. 

To get to the places I visited, I traveled via train (I like trains a lot!!!!), bus, coach (not the same thing), airplane (from N-u-T back to Heathrow the day before I came home), a car, a cab and by foot while I was visiting.  I didn'[t do anything boat-y.  BUT there's always next time!

And we're off to the races!!!!