Author name: Richard Clarke

Cathedrals 3.

Today’s photo, taken from an old postcard purchased long ago, shows Ely cathedral’s west entrance and west porch with the single west tower behind and beyond, over the crossing, the octagonal lantern tower, this completed in 1322 and was then the most progressive architecture of its day. Monastic cathedrals (those served by Benedictine monks) had […]

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Cathedrals 2.

Today’s picture shows Turner’s painting of the south transept of Ely cathedral plus the central octagon lighting the crossing. By the eighth century it had evolved that each of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England (as now), the so-called ‘Heptarchy’, had its cathedral although no modern cathedrals evidence the buildings of that time. However, with

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Cathedrals.

Above, a photo. of Ely cathedral as viewed across water meadows from the south. Firstly a misconception – cathedrals are not defined by their ‘bigness’, for example, Beverley Minster (not a cathedral) is much larger (groundfloor area and volume) than Hereford cathedral. This misconception is further fuelled by ‘pseudo’ cathedrals e.g. Patrington church in Holderness

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