I went the Cathedral for Mattins Sunday. If you go as a tourist it will cost over £16 to take the tour and you are not allowed to take pictures. If you go to a service you don’t get a tour obviously and still can’t take shots but you get a much better experience. So I looked at my visit a a twofer (and made a donation). One I could see the inside of Christopher Wren’s masterpiece rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1666 and secondly I could thank our Creator for a wonderful trip so far and being non-denominational or more technically a deist, this worked for me.
I cheated as the better pictures are from the post when I was there in April 2015. Confession over.
Let me say that this second largest church in the UK after Liverpool (see post in 2015 for that visit) is the most magnificent church I have ever seen. When I arrived the bells were peeling. They do so for about 15 minutes before a service and maybe after but since there was another service following the one I attended, I can’t say for sure. I was early so I spent a few minutes speaking with one of the Stewards, Raymond. One of the things Ray informed me of was that today it would have cost £95m to build, but since it took 35 years to do so, it would have only been about £3m a year. He also mentioned that there is only one stained glass window and that is dedicated to the American servicemen and women who died in WWII. The State Seals of all 50 states are represented. The other windows are clear both because of Reformation policy and to let in more light. This was the first cathedral built after the Reformation so it has none of the broken statuary one sees in older churches. Bespoke so to speak. Wren had to be sly with his dome, or should I say domes as there are two over the one one sees inside with the outer one being of wood covered in lead making it much lighter than a similar one of stone would have been because the church leaders were opposed to anything that looked Romanish like St. Peter’s. The original plan included a steeple that slowly was turned not what we see now.
You really should go online or visit to see what the interior looks like as spectacular is too small word.
I’ve never attended a religious service outside the Roman Catholic one and so this was both new and pleasing. More similar than different I would say with Mattins followed by a Sung Eucharist, an Epiphanytide Procession and Organ recital and Eucharist later in the day. The choir was grand and I heard my first Te Deum. The Reverend Canon Tricia Hillas, Canon Master, Canon in Residence gave the Address. She spoke of choices. The ones we make everyday and the more extraordinary ones we make when faced with something big or different. She told a story of a British climber who had made the choice to climb Mt. Everest. On his way down he became disoriented and sat down never to get up again. His choice? But she also commented on the 40 other climbers who pasted them on the way to the summit. Climbers whose choices were to continue their journey rather than stop and try to help. By the time they returned 9 hours had elapsed and the Brit was dead. Their choices. It was a good and thoughtful address. No ranting or thundering, just a subject that lead to contemplation. At least for me. My first choice upon leaving was to take a turn heading in the wrong direction. Not what The good Reverend was meaning but typical for me. This wrong choice though had me suddenly near the house where Dr. Samuel Johnson had lived. Closed of course, it being Sunday, and small enough that I missed very little. But since I am a fan of the Dr. having read most of his Dictionary and some of his other works I was happy to have found it. I only read most of this first dictionary because I loaned it to my oncologist for her father to read and never got it back. Maybe she didn’t think I’d get to finish it but since I now have that opportunity I picked up another copy which is currently in storage. One of Dr. J’s more famous lines reads “The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!” I understand where he was coming from at the time but after his trip with Jim Boswell, I doubt he held it as strongly. I sure don’t.
I’ll leave the dichotomy of my next stop that day, the Imperial War Museum, to both you and a later post.
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