23/2/09 11:09 PM
This is going to be a long entry, due to all the pictures I have. At Canterbury, I took over 200 photos. I’m not going to share all of them with you, but I will share most of them.
For those of you who print these out, I apologize for the volume of images in this post.
This has been a daunting post for that very reason. I could slap up two hundred pictures and let you look at them and try to figure out what they heck they are, but then you wouldn’t appreciate them nearly as much. What I’m going to do instead is try to caption them so you understand what you’re looking at. :)
On Tuesday, before I left, I tried some coffee while Jeremy was over. This was, believe it or not, the very first time I’ve ever drunk coffee. Jeremy asked if I really was an American: never had coffee!? Drinking water without ice in it!?
On a tangent, I love water. Love love love love love it. It’s my favourite drink in the whole world. Trouble is, I have a sensitive stomach, and so if water has too many unfamiliar chemicals in it, it could make me very queasy. Never actually got sick from water, but highly uncomfortable. As a result, I’ve packed my Brita pitcher. The Brits do have Brita pitchers themselves, as they’ve realized that if they filter water before pouring it in the electric kettle (the most miraculous invention, known in America as a hot pot), they get much less mineral deposit on the heating elements. For some reason, though, the Brits aren’t so fond of drinking non-tea fluids in large quantities. They give you these little itty bitty glasses.
Let’s put it this way: at home, I have two 32-oz cups I use for water. I usually go through 2 full cups a day.
The cup for water that Sally provided in my room was maybe a 4-oz cup.
I have sense provided myself with disposable plastic pint glasses for my room. I like getting more than a mouthful of water at a time. My Brita pitcher stands on my windowsill, sucking in the cool air from outside. It’s almost like a refrigerator!
Anyway. Water tangent aside.
On Wednesday, I went off to Canterbury bearing a bag of sweets for Chris Crooks’ (this IS how you spell his name) kids. Sally used to babysit them, you see. Jeremy never did get me anything to bring to Benedict, his godson, but I sent his love. I also sent the vergers’ love.
I took the National Express, which is a coach service here. The first coach was really nice. It had comfy faux-leather seats and lights and air and all that.
That one took me to London, and I transferred to another coach that took me on to Canterbury. That coach was similar, but older, so the seats weren’t as nice and it smelled funny. What made it worse, though, was how there was a mother and a son sitting near the back. The son screamed the entire 2 hours from London to Canterbury, and I could clearly hear the mother trying to calm him down. She noticed that he had a wet diaper (so take him into the bathroom and change him, lady!) and she kept asking him if he wanted something to drink. I was so close to marching up to her, grabbing the juice she kept trying to offer the kid, and shoving it in his mouth. Stick SOMETHING in there! Geez! Anything to shut him up! Don’t ASK him if he’s thirsty, just shove it in and save the ears of everyone else!
I couldn’t get off the coach fast enough.
Canterbury was a charming little town, with lots of cobblestone pedestrian areas wide enough to drive in and signs pointing to the cathedral and an old clocktower from a church (no church, but there were two gravestones inside the tower). It’s much more crowded than Salisbury, though, and there was no spire sticking up above the buildings to follow. I did eventually find the cathedral… I was following the signs, walking past an alley… stopped, backed up a few steps and looked. It was all lit up against the night sky, very, very attractive.
The gates to the close were closed, which was a problem, since the place I was staying was inside the close. Luckily, though, right before I reached the gates, a car drove up and they opened so the guard could talk to the driver. I asked if I could go in, and the guard said sure, once I had confirmed I was staying at the Cathedral Lodge.
The Cathedral Lodge is a new building, about ten years old, a visitors’ centre for the Cathedral. I had a room there for one night, with breakfast the next morning. My keycard didn’t work, but the lady at the front desk was quick to replace it. When I got my door open, my jaw almost dropped. Everything looked so posh!
After documenting the room with pictures, I noticed that there were no towels in the bathroom, just a mat for the floor. Hmm… I went to the front desk to ask about them, and again, the lady was quick to bring me replacement towels. My room, she said, is usually used as a demo room, which was probably why it wasn’t fully prepared. They didn’t usually rent it out.
The view was excellent, though, and my bed was super comfy. I read another chapter of my travel reading material (Pillars of the Earth, by Ken Follett, an inspired choice to read when visiting a monastic cathedral like Canterbury if I do say so myself!) and went to bed. The bed was even comfier when I woke up.
Breakfast was delicious. I had a croissant with ham and swiss cheese, orange juice, and tea. Some elderly Germans at my table asked me (in German) if I spoke German. I understood them enough to realize what they were asking and said “No,” but I smiled at them anyway. The breakfast staff was just as helpful, refilling orange juice and bringing pots of tea.
I had arranged to meet with Chris between 9 and 10 AM, but I had a problem. I had blisters. For some reason, the day before, when I walked a bit (but not any more than usual), I gave myself blisters. I knew I was going to spend a ton of time on my feet today, so I had to do something. I hurried out to a Superdrug I had passed on the way in (two major British pharmacy chains are Superdrug and Boots) and bought some Compeed blister plasters. (Band-aids are plasters in the UK. Elastoplast is a common brand)
Compeed Blister plasters, for those of you who haven’t heard me gush about them before, are magical. They’re Swiss, I think, but they’re like gel. You stick one on a blister, and it’s as good as gone. No pain, no rubbing, and when the plaster peels itself off a few days later (it peels itself off painlessly, before then, you can shower with it on and stuff), the blister really IS gone. I’ve had some nasty blisters before, but with a Compeed, I could walk for miles.
I DID walk for miles! I took my pack of plasters (5 in a pack) back to my room and slapped them on all my blisters (4! I used 4! In addition to 1 I was already wearing… grr to the socks I had on! (same boots as I usually wore)). When I stood up again… ah. No pain.
This was very good, because according to my pedometer (new acquisition from Tuesday as well), I walked 13,000+ steps on Thursday. That’s roughly… 6.5 miles?
Compeeds in place, I stuck the last plaster in my purse, just in case, and headed over to the Cathedral. Chris wasn’t in yet, but I met with other vergers and hung around the east end until he did show up. I introduced myself, passed along all the messages of love, and… he gave me a tour. :D
As head verger, little things like chains to keep people out of an area or locked doors did not dissuade Chris. The first thing he did was take me right up to the chains that sectioned off the spot where the shrine to St. Thomas Beckett once stood, unhooked the chains, and led me in, right up to the candle.
Thomas Beckett was archbishop of Canterbury in the 1100s, I believe. He was a good friend of the king, and appointed to that position because the king thought he’d be happy to do whatever the king wanted. Oops. Once he was archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas’ allegiance was with the Church first, Crown second. At one point, he exiled himself to France until the king apologized. Shortly thereafter, though, he pissed the king off again by excommunicating people and declaring that the coronation of the king’s nephew (I think nephew) was null and void because that was the duty of the archbishop of Canterbury, not the archbishop of York who had stepped in while Thomas was away. The king uttered a fateful sentence—“Who will rid me of this tempestuous priest!?”—and four of his knights rode out to do the king’s bidding. Nobody knows if they went on their own accord, thinking “Hey, the king’ll love us if we do this for him!” or if they were sent by him officially.
In any event, they rode to Canterbury, where the monks were trying to hustle Thomas into the quire for vespers (because they were afraid that these knights wanted to kill him). Thomas was taking his time, though. They got him through the cloisters and into the cathedral, but he refused to let the doors be barred (the doors to the house of God shall be barred to no one, he said). As he was ascending the stairs to the quire, the knights burst in, demanding to know where he was. Thomas called out to them, they ran up to him, one tried to pick him up… there was a tussle, and he ended up on the ground. Another knight raised his sword and slashed it down with such force that he cut off a bit of Thomas’ skull and the sword point broke upon the ground. Blood and brains everywhere, I’m sure. Thomas was dead, the knights fled, and the people in the church, even before the monks could get out of the quire and down to Thomas, hurried forward to dip their clothes in Thomas’ brains and blood because they thought it had healing powers.
Thomas was taken to the crypt, where a new section was built for him, and he was interred between two marble columns. The monks watched pilgrims to his shrine and recorded miracles that happened. These miracles were then depicted in the stained glass in the east end of the church. Meanwhile, they were adding on to the east end, building a new apse. Here, they built a fantastic shrine to Thomas, and they translated his remains up to it a couple years later. The miracles continued. Pilgrims flocked to the shrine by the thousand, leaving gold and jewels. When the shrine was finally torn down by the orders of King Henry VIII in the 1500s, it took eight carts to bring all the precious metals and jewels from Canterbury to London (the rest of the shrine and Thomas’ remains were thrown into the river). The steps that led up to the shrine, Chris told me, were reused to pave the hole left by the removal of the shrine. They know how big the shrine had been, though, because there are grooves worn into the stone from the knees of pilgrims. Grooves. From knees.
See how the stones are jagged? They didn’t bother to pave under the shrine, so when they fixed the floor, they just stuck the old steps in wherever they were needed.
Windows depicting miracles.
On either side of Thomas’ shrine were royalty. King Henry Some Number (4, I think), and his wife, and Edward, the Black Prince (who, despite his name, was quite a popular British hero) have their tombs there.
Henry and his wife. Poor guy is fingerless.
The Black Prince.
Poor Edward wanted to be buried in the crypt. He paid a lot of money to be buried in the crypt. They fixed up a bit of the crypt into a chantry chapel for him. Then they buried him by Thomas because they figured he was such a popular hero, he’d bring in even more pilgrims who’d give even more money.
At the head of the church is a perfectly circular chapel called the Corona Chapel (corona, from the Latin for head). In this chapel, there was a silver head reliquary which either had the bit of skull chopped off from Thomas’ head in it or on it. They’re not quite sure. That too, is long gone, and the chapel is now for martyrs of our day.
Interestingly enough, the Corona Chapel is not in a direct line with the church. It’s a little off to the side. Why is this?
Simple.
It’s the head of Christ on the cross.
Cathedrals are shaped like crosses, so if Jesus was on the cross, he wouldn’t be holding his head up, it would be lolling to one side. So that’s how they designed the Corona Chapel. Interesting, I thought.
This poor guy is a French Bishop. He died while in the UK, so they built this almost paper-mache tomb for him, meaning for it to be temporary until the French came to take his body back to France and give him a proper burial.
He’s been in Canterbury since 1571. They don’t think the French are coming.
Canterbury Cathedral began in 597. By the time it was a big Cathedral, Norman architecture was the big thing, so rounded arches. There was a fire in the quire at one point, and they rebuilt it. This arcade of arches is odd. It’s all rounded, you see…
…until this one. It’s almost as if the monks were going, “Hmm… not sure about this new-fangled pointed arch… what’s it gonna look like?” So the builders put in one pointed arch, and the monks decided they liked them.
I ended up taking three tours of the Cathedral that day. Chris gave me the first one, and it was the most fascinating. Then I took an official guided tour. It was rather obvious that the guide did not LOVE the Cathedral. She liked it enough, but half of what she said was um or er, which made the tour rather boring, and she didn’t speak with much enthusiasm about anything. After that, I took an audio tour, which was slow but more interesting than the official tour.
Here are some pictures of all around the Cathedral, with commentary if I think of anything. :) The weather was supposed to be overcast, but aside from the morning, whenever I stepped outside, the sky was blue and sunny. When I went back in, though, the clouds came up. :)
The whole Cathedral, by the way, has been rebuilt. None of the original 597 is left, though there may be some remains in the foundations. The nave, when it was rebuilt in a perpendicular style, could not be expanded in any direction due to other buildings, so it is abnormally high for its size.
Connecting the two transepts. Thomas was killed on the other side of this tunnel.
The swords and the “Thomas” are modern art, to commemorate him. The little altar is known as the altar of the sword point, because that’s where the broken sword had been displayed before Henry ripped it all up (the altar is modern, too).
Gory tomb in a chapel behind and to the left of the altar of the sword point.
In WWII, the Cathedral was filled with dirt up to 6-8 ft deep in order to cushion it against bomb impacts. Canterbury was heavily bombed, but the Cathedral managed to survive.
They did lose some windows, though. This window replaces one destroyed by the bombs.
The cloisters were used by the monks for meditations and such.
Hard to see, but this is a two-tailed mermaid… which is the Starbucks logo. :D
Great big cisterns of water sat in these two gaps, so the monks could wash their hands before going through the door behind those for their meals. They’d regularly dump the cisterns and flush out the loos (they had seating for 56 at a time in the loos!) and replace the water with fresh rainwater.
As a result, when the plague came, less than ten people died in the monastery.
Looking through one of those gaps, and a close up of some decoration on it.
No longer a refectory behind this door.
The chapter house was closed due to work being done in it, but it had windows, so I took some pictures.
This is the vestry, where the priests robe up. The paint is all original. The vergers say that if Thomas came into it now (they hope he doesn’t!), he’d recognize it.
This chapel is now the memorial of soldiers, and every weekday at 11, there’s a ceremony where they ring the bell of the HMS Canterbury (next to this chapel) and turn the page of the book, which records all the soldiers who’ve died for England since WWII, I believe. This chapel was not always for war. The big tomb in the middle behind the book belongs to an incredibly wealthy woman and her two husbands (both died before her). How wealthy was she?
Before she came in, it belonged to a saint. She had him shifted eastward and the chapel redone. Unfortunately, she made it too short. To this day, the saint’s feet protrude through the wall and are covered with paving stones outside to protect him from the weather (he’s in a tomb, don’t worry!). The saint is Stephen Langton, who was the archbishop of Canterbury for the signing of the Magna Carta.
You can just see him behind the lady’s tomb.
This bishop’s got an odd tomb. It’s beautifully decorated on top, but what’s below?
Most guys settled on either a full-of-life effigy or a corpse-like one. Looks like this guy wanted both.
Lots of interior shots. They pick up all the chairs from the nave in February, to show what the Cathedral had looked like when it was built. No chairs, no pews… but it would have had market stalls!
The great west door. Meh. Salisbury’s is Greater.
The feeling was damaged by these signs at regular intervals. I’m sure Thomas never saw THOSE!
Up the central tower. The white cross in the middle is actually a trap door that lets stone and stuff be taken up. It’s still the only way to bring materials into the inside of the tower.
Whenever you see a stair picture, look for wearing of the stone. Thousands upon thousands of pilgrims, remember, usually on their knees the whole way!
Cathedral shop. Part of it. They had a separate building for the rest of it.
They have it recorded that a vicar got up on a ladder and smashed out most of the glass from this window during the reformation.
I wish I could show you pictures of the crypt. It was beautiful, so still and quiet, and there was a lot of original painting left, including one chapel where the apse had been walled off for centuries. Only recently (1990s, I believe Chris said) did they decide that the Cathedral was structurally sound and they took down the wall, discovering medieval painting that was almost as good as brand new! No photos were allowed, though.
You’ll just have to visit for yourself!
I did find a side exit in the crypt, though, and upon exiting, I found this place.
That’s the library/archives. I tried to get a librarian to talk to me about it, but they didn’t have time for a tour, they said. Blargh. It was open to the public, but I didn’t actually find it until a few minutes before I had to go, so I didn’t go in.
Outdoor shots?
The main entrance
Entrance to the cloisters
Leading into the cathedral from the cloisters
See what I mean about the blue sky!?
Not sure what type of tree this is, but it looks sick.
I retraced my coach steps, leaving Canterbury at 5:30 and arriving in Salisbury at 11 PM, with just 50 pages left to go in Pillars of the Earth Sally was so wonderful and picked me up at the coach station. :)
Allow me to interrupt here with an entry I wrote while on the bus.
19/2/09 8:31 PM
On the bus from Canterbury. I met an old couple at the London coach station. I think they were Welsh. The man sat next to me and talked with a stutter and a thick accent, but he watched my bags when I went to throw out my trash from dinner. He asked if I was going somewhere exciting, and when I said Salisbury, he reminisced fondly of the city. We talked, and he kept (playfully) suggesting that I get off at Basingstoke (his stop), and he’d take my volunteer badge and continue on to Salisbury. He and his wife were planning on coming to Salisbury in July. If I’m still there, I told them I’d give them a tour of the Cathedral.
As a verger.
Back to my book!
24/2/09 12:45 AM
Woo, writing quite a bit tonight. Word’s pagecount says I’m up to 20 pages now! Anyway, I’m almost done, I promise!
On Friday evening, I went to see a play with Sally and Linda and a whole group of people (15 in all, I believe). It was called “The Winslow Boy” and was mostly interesting, but the ‘main’ character (in ‘’ because the plot revolved around something he did or didn’t do, but he didn’t do much in the play itself) was miscast. He looked far too old for his role, which did much to ruin the believability. All of the actors were phenomenal, though, and I loved the playhouse. There wasn’t a bad seat in the room. Nothing would block your view, and the seats were set on steps steep enough so that unless you had the misfortune of being stuck behind a 7-ft giant or something, the person in front of you could not block your view.
Friday morning, though, was my favourite time so far. God decided to play “Hide the spire.”
This is what it looked like on Wednesday morning, before I left for Canterbury.
This is what it looked like on Friday morning.
But the most absolutely magnificent moment of that day was when I entered the Cathedral to go guide in the Chapter House.
PLEASE click this picture to see the full view. The shrunk version does it no justice!
Effective yesterday, I’ve also decided that I’m going to go to every single service the Cathedral offers. This includes the 7:30 AM morning service. I think I’m crazy, but I need to show just how determined I am to get this verger job. And it’s good for me to get up and have a schedule. :) I did it without a problem yesterday, let’s see if I can do it all week!
(21 pages! Good night!)
OH!
Before I forget! (and now it’s 22 pages).
I MADE COOKIES!
Not just cookies, but a 9-9.5/10 batch! I bought fresh ingredients, picked a darker brown sugar that was closer to the brown sugar back in the States, baking soda (bicarbonate of soda), vanilla extract, less butter…
And they are delicious.
Sally about died from shock when she took a bite after asking if I thought they were better. I said “YES.” She bit, and her expression was wonderfully priceless. “Oh my!” she said. “You could open a shop with these!”
Yes, that was a real American cookie. Boo-ya!
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