Canterbury close

The hotel we stayed at in Canterbury, the Cathedral Lodge, was inside the cathedral precinct and came with free entrance to the cathedral, which we made good use of. Another of its functions being a residential training centre for senior clerics, the Lodge included a small library, serving as both a lounge and a source of books, mainly but not exclusively ecclesiastical. A bonus which included what appeared to be an excellent history of the cathedral from OUP, but for which the lowest price to be seen on the internet is £50 or so, so our own copy will have to wait.

The cathedral, alone of cathedrals of our acquaintance, comes with a secure perimeter, once the outer wall of the monastery of which the cathedral was the abbey church, and with what used to be its own small police force, now swallowed up by Kent Constabulary, the constables of which man the not very many holes in the perimeter. The main gate, shut at night, is also attended all night and people with legitimate business ring the bell to be inspected and, hopefully, admitted through the postern. Plus a couple of chaps with machine guns outside the main gate when we left for a stroll around town on our first morning.

The timing of our visit was lucky in that while we were there they were starting the digging (complete with archeologists) and scaffolding for a major restoration project, with the scaffolding set to mask most of the exterior and some of the interior for three or four years. Two of the key words of this restoration were community and accessibility, so we hope that the church authorities manage to strike a satisfactory balance between the various claims on the cathedral, without drifting too far in the direction of visitor experiences - with my being in the odd position of an atheist who wants the church to remain a working church, at least while there are enough believers for this to be a sensible proposition.

But we were struck by the variety of claims on the cathedral. The two big functions being those of church and tourist attraction. But then there are lots of other interests. The school attached to the cathedral. All the people who like the music which comes with the Anglican communion. The bell ringers. The ladies who do the flowers. The corporation of trusties - some at least of whom are retired teachers - who man the cathedral during the day. The archeologists and other heritage people. The maintenance crew, which probably includes a team of heritage-qualified stone masons. I dare say that in its restored version there will be a café and a restaurant - both presently absent, which is unusual for a cathedral - which will no doubt go on to be a major source of income. The people who worship at the cathedral. The people who have loved ones buried there. The people who still make the pilgrimage. And last but not least, the Dean and the Cathedral Chapter. They are all stake holders, all people with a view on how the cathedral should be organised. Let's hope they chose the Dean for his people and management skills, rather than his ecclesiastical ones.

I had remembered that the east end of the church was higher, by ten feet or so, than the west end, vaguely thinking that the cathedral had been built on a hill, probably very unsound from an engineering point of view. The real reason was the substantial - and very old - crypt under the east end, including some norman/romanesque columns & capitals the like of which I don't think I have seen before.

I had also forgotten the horizontal beams which had been inserted - I presume five hundred years ago - in the four arches which took the weight of the big tower, to stop them deflecting under the strain. No doubt necessary, with the falling of such towers being by no means unknown, but rather spoiling the lines of the arches.

The cloisters were more or less entire, which is unusual, but a bit battered. Maybe they will be part of the refurbishment.

Some splendid fan vaulting, much more to my taste than the probably better known but rather degenerate vaulting at King's College Chapel in Cambridge, vaulting which is pretty, but which is too obviously nothing much to do with holding the roof up. To succeed, we have at least to pretend.

Moans apart, a magnificent place. And all the better for not being awash with tourists, in the way that Westminster Abbey seems to be all year round.

I wondered about how it was that St. Thomas Becket came to be such an important saint, the focus of an enormous cult for centuries. An efficient civil servant more than a parson for most of his life, a lot more famous for having been murdered in the course of an essentially political quarrel with the king than he would have been otherwise, the fact that such murders, of civilians anyway, were scarcely rare at the time notwithstanding. I seem to recall from school that our kings and queens did not stop executing people with whom they had quarreled until the time of the Hanoverians, some hundreds of years later. Perhaps it is just one more bit of evidence that the governed like to cock a snook at the governors - with dressing of this cocking up in religious clothes making it hard for the governors to put a stop to it. A tradition which has continued to this day.

We attended one sung evensong, with an all male choir and rather impressive - with a mixed choir being slated for the following day. Organ pipes tucked away in the triforium, the first time I have seen such a thing. Presumably only possible in these days of electrical assistance. Would not have done with a purely mechanical instrument.

PS: the illustration being a painting about the chap who gave his name (if not his paternity) to the paternal half of BH's family, St. Eustace. Something over 500 years old, a little touched up over the years.

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