Gloucester Cathedral

[poliphilo]

This is what I love. Over the past three days I've been in three cathedrals, one stone circle and a ruined abbey and I've climbed Glastonbury Tor in the early morning. 

The weather held up. We were promised rain- which would have made much of what we did unfeasible. Would I have tramped round Avebury on a chilly evening if it had also been throwing it down?  I don't think so. On the morning I climbed the Tor we had clear sunshine for a critical hour or two and the small birds were singing and it was like I was 18 again.

On the way down we stopped at Gloucester for lunch. Neither of us had ever been there before. Gloucester cathedral is airy and delicate- "like an ivory carving" said Ailz. I think it's the loveliest cathedral in England. But it's not all delicate; the pillars in the nave are massy and romanesque and though I love the gothic it's the romanesque that moves me most deeply; I don't know why. The cloisters have glorious15th fifteenth century fan vaulting. They featured in a couple of the Harry Potter films And are going to show up in the next as well. While we were there a small gang of workmen was setting up lights and laying the wooden foundations of something or other in the cloister garth.

 

Comments

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Most of our English cathedrals were started in the Norman era and then just went on developing century after century. The greatest pure late gothic building in England is probably Kings College chapel, Cambridge.