Every year, the square between the National Football Museum and Manchester Cathedral is occupied by an ice rink from early November. Then, every year around this time, it is dismantled again. I guess it keeps some people employed. Presumably there is some order involved; piece number 697 is getting ready for filing, for example.
St Magnus — originally Magnus Erlendssen — was one of the Norse Earls of Orkney. Apparently someone thought it was a good idea at the time to set up a kind of power-sharing agreement with his cousin Håkon, which lasted only as long as it took Håkon to capture Magnus and stick an axe into his parietal lobe. However, as Magnus was considered something of a pious dude and all-round good sort, after his nephew Rognvald subsequently deposed the usurper, he built this cathedral in tribute. This is pretty good going, as most of us these days will get a post mortem on Facebook and a few ‘likes’. I dunno, progress, eh?
On the tourist trail today, and boy were there a lot of them, or should I say us. People everywhere, cramming the narrow streets of York, maybe they were enjoying themselves or maybe they were just participating, robot-like in the early stages of the now-mandated 7-week Thou Shalt Shop And Wear Silly Jumpers period: a reminder to some, there’s a whole month yet before Christmas Day. Anyway, this included walking past the Minster, as one does in York, and taking pictures of the people taking pictures — surely I appear on the shots captured by the woman in the red hat and the guy two places to her left.
No one seems able to leave any empty Manchester space empty for long. Cathedral Gardens is particularly prone to being built on by some temporary structure or other, if it’s not the ‘Davis Cup Fan Zone’ (that was last month) it’s whatever this twelve-hi-vis operation might become. Probably the ice rink; for after all, it’s nearly Christmas.
Properly, the Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, Ripon: a big church for a small place. There’s been a place of Christian worship on this site since 672, so 1,350 years. Quite a weight of history, and like most such buildings, you can feel it. This shot of the rood screen and organ pipes above is one where it helps to get the symmetry right, and I think I’ve managed that.
I suppose I am reasonably well-travelled but this is still only my third-ever trip to Spain, the most recent being in about 2007 for a conference (hence before the start of this blog), and the first being in 1991 when I went inter-railing round Europe and went to Madrid and a couple of the cities in the south. But I never visited Barcelona, and Clare hadn’t done so either, and so when we were thinking about a destination for an Easter break, this was suggested and so here we are.
When in this place, everyone comes to see this building, don’t they? But I’m not sure I actually like it. It’s fantastic, unique, for sure, but it’s also somewhat mad, excessive, lacking in grace and beauty (something not true of St Basil’s, which could also be accused of excess). The other Gaudi buildings in the city are more attractive. It’s just a personal opinion based on a quick first impression, so don’t listen to me though. I suppose that one indication of the impression is that the cranes poking out of the top look at first like they may be a deliberate part of the design. It has been under construction for 140 years now, and still isn’t finished. Heaven knows what might still be to come.
On Lincoln’s only previous appearance on this blog (10/3/20) the outside of the Cathedral was depicted: today I (and Clare, visible as a slightly blurred figure on the left) went inside. The interior is just as impressive, particularly considering this was all raised to the glory of the Almighty more than 700 years ago. As I noted on my previous post, this was the tallest building in the world in the Middle Ages, a title it held for at least 230 years. You don’t have to be particularly religious to recognise that with this place, the builders really made a statement.
File this under the ‘Someone Else’s Art’ category — specifically, these stained glass windows (of which there are four in total) were created by Tom Denny in 2007. They celebrate the life and work of poet Thomas Traherne, who wrote in the 17th century but was not discovered and properly published until the early 20th century, when it was decided by those who decide these things that he had anticipated Romanticism by about 150 years. I’ve never read the guy, but the windows are worth seeing.
The other side of the Mersey, that is. Hence, on the (recently updated) stats this photo counts as one in Birkenhead, not Liverpool. But Liverpool is what you see here, including both its cathedrals: Catholic (a.k.a. “Paddy’s Wigwam“) on the left, the Anglican one on the right.
This is a truly monumental building, the first ever built that exceeded in height the Great Pyramid of Giza: and the only reason it lost its title as the world’s tallest in 1548 was because the spire was destroyed in a storm, and never rebuilt. Even today it can be seen for miles around, sitting as it does at the top of one of the few hills in Lincolnshire. It is proof that people 700 years ago can still show us a few things or two when it comes to engineering and architecture.
Being 42 