All the Cathedrals (13): Salisbury

Zero and I recently ventured out on the railway (taking advantage of the half price rail fares at the time) for a visit to Salisbury. We could have planned our visit a bit more carefully to take in Old Sarum, which is a mile or two outside of the city centre, and can be reached by a short bus journey. 

 We lunched at The Pheasant after arriving; it is a little off the city centre in Salt Street, so you aren't going to come across it without knowing about it. You will also need to check their times for serving food - but we did enjoy our meals there. [Or, on a nice summers day, you could probably take a picnic to eat on the grassed area within the Cathedral close.]

The site at Old Sarum is an English Heritage site, and you can read about it here and here. The first Cathedral in Salisbury was built there, before being abandoned. A result of this is that the "new" Cathedral has a consistent medieval gothic architecture, rather than it being in part a previous build with later gothic additions. It is still a living cathedral in the sense that there are modern day features in addition to the older building. At one point in its history, stained glass was removed from the nave windows with the outcome that the nave appears today very light due to the influx of natural daylight. That having been said, there is a good deal of stained glass present, reflecting the late 19th century as well as earlier influences. We did not follow the stained glass tour, which would no doubt have given much more insight. The Cathedral charge for entry, with a £1 reduction if you book ahead online.

The Chapter House is a round building off the cloister at the side of the Cathedral. It is interesting for those of a scientific or design orientation to realise how very well lit the room is from the windows around it. The Chapter House is where you can see Salisbury Cathedral's copy of the Magna Carta. Whilst there is a very informative display about the document's contents, the viewing of the actual document itself is somewhat underwhelming - the way in which it has been displayed, in subdued lighting, in order to preserve it leaves you with a feeling of "is that all there is?" 

The Reformation saw the destruction of the shrine of St Osmund and the removal of statues. A visit will take you to a chantry chapel that was discontinued at this time and its statues removed. The Cathedral experienced very little damage during the Civil War, another period when Cathedrals in England typically suffered. During most of the Civil War, Salisbury was in Royalist hands, with a brief occupation by Parliamentary troops in the winter of 1644-1645, when the cloister was used as a prison.

The prisoners of conscience window was completed in the Cathedral in 1980. A brief account and a photograph can be found here. As the comment here says, we found it very difficult to make out any of the images in the window. This video clip, from 2020, gives an explanation of some of the elements in the window. Whilst prisoners of conscience, even those without religious faith, can certainly look to the trial and crucifixion of Jesus and see in it something of their own experience, I am not sure what I think of the possibility of a reverse representation in this window of Jesus as if he is himself a prisoner of conscience. It seems to me a  reductive interpretation of Jesus' death for the salvation of the world.

Perhaps the most remarkable modern feature of Salisbury Cathedral is the baptismal font. My first photograph gives an idea of the position of the font in the nave; the second gives an idea of the power of the reflections that can be seen in the surface. Given the very modern concept of the font - an account by the designer can be found here - it is striking just how much at home the font appears in the Cathedral.

There are one or two museums in the Cathedral Close, but we did not have time to visit them. Perhaps the Salisbury Museum would be the best to see, as it covers the story of Salisbury itself.

Part of the genius of Anglicanism is its ability to be a Church for a wider community, reflected in the readiness for a property such as a Cathedral to be used for non-religious purposes. The nave of Salisbury Cathedral, for example, was at one point, when it was closed to visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic, used as a vaccination centre. And Salisbury Cathedral can be hired for events. It is difficult to separate this from the fact that, inevitably, a Cathedral such as Salisbury is a "visitor attraction" as well as being an active place of Christian worship.

All the Cathedrals (12): Lichfield

 Zero and I are once again taking up our visits to Cathedral towns (aided at the moment by the half price rail fare offer - we made it to Lichfield and back from East London yesterday for the ridiculous price of £6 each!).

The website of Lichfield City Council has an informative page on the Cathedral: Lichfield Cathedral. The Cathedral has its own website here. Wikipedia provides a detailed account of St Chad, with the section on "Cult and Relics" indicating how his life is marked in the history of Lichfield Cathedral: Chad of Mercia. In the present day Cathedral, an icon showing St Chad stands as a shrine, positioned above the point where St Chad was buried behind the high altar of the original cathedral. The relics of St Chad are now located above the high altar of the Roman Catholic cathedral in Birmingham. Again, Wikipedia includes an account of how the relics come to be in the possession of the Catholic diocese.

As you visit Lichfield Cathedral today, you see a unified Gothic cathedral that dates from the mediaeval period. The shrine to St Chad which was previously to be found in the apse behind the high altar was removed at the time of Henry VIII's reign, though the present day building does not show any destructive signs of the dissolution of the shrine. The years of the Civil War, however, led to much greater destruction due to war damage and troop occupation. Where another town might have had a castle that would have been a focus for defence and attack, it was the Cathedral and its close that played that part in Lichfield. After the end of the Civil War, and the restoration of the monarchy, Bishop Hackett and his collaborators undertook a major repair of the damage, so the present day cathedral again does not readily show the destruction that occurred.

Highlights to see: (1) The Lichfield Angel - the account here also indicates something of the two previous Cathedral buildings that exist underneath the present Cathedral, but which are not apparent to the visitor to today's Cathedral; (2) the St Chad Gospels. (3) The stained glass windows in the apse of the Lady Chapel - known as the "Herkenrode glass", but I can't find a convenient link for this. We were unable to take part in a tour of the Cathedral, but I suspect that the tour would have given us a fuller impression of the history of the Cathedral.

Lichfield is also the birth place of Samuel Johnson. The town house in which he was born is now the Samuel Johnson Birthplace, Museum and Bookshop. The museum is well worth a visit - we took particular interest in leafing through a (replica) copy of Samuel Johnson's encyclopaedia next to an original copy enclosed in a glass case. The museum enables you to get a feel both for Samuel Johnson himself and for the climate in which he lived and wrote. His life's work reads something like that of a present day newspaper columnist and author, with his eventual "fame" being akin to what we today would call "celebrity". Not surprisingly, a couple of charities have good bookshops on the same street as the Samuel Johnson museum!

All the Cathedrals (11): Truro

Zero and I have just returned from a visit to Cornwall, where we stayed in what is very much Daphne du Maurier country. We stayed in the village of Tywardreath, which featured in the du Maurier novel that Zero was reading (The King's General), just a 5 minute drive from Menabilly, where Daphne du Maurier lived for many years, and which recognisably features in both The King's General and in My Cousin Rachel, which I started reading during our time away.

On one of our days, we visited Truro Cathedral, which is sharply distinguished from our earlier Cathedral visits by the fact that it was built relatively recently - that is, in Victorian times. The typical story of a (Norman) monastic house dissolved by Henry VIII's commisioners to become a diocesan cathedral with chapter, subsequent despoliation by Parliamentary forces during the Civil War, and then restoration and (Victorian) repairs, is therefore absent. That having been said, the Gothic style and layout does echo the style and layout of those much older Cathedrals, as does its city centre location, something that our guide suggested was the result of a deliberate attempt to imitate that tradition of cathedral building. The history of the building of the Cathedral can be accessed from this page on the Cathedral website: History. 

One of the best features of the Cathedral is the reredos behind the high altar. The best online pictures of this I can find are at this blog post - you can enlarge the photographs there by clicking on them. The reredos is very striking, and you can see in it an idea of portraying key moments in salvation history, with Old Testament types of Christ's sacrifice in Calvary, and Eucharistic representations such as the gathering of the manna in the desert.

Another feature of note is the very extensive stained glass. An outline of the themes of the stained glass can be found on the Cathedral website: Stained Glass Windows. A much more detailed account of the planning of the windows, and pictures and exploration of each window can be found in the links from this page (though you might like to jump straight to this page to find links to accounts of the windows themselves).  In some ways, it is the last windows in the order, on the left as you face the high altar from the end of the nave, that allow the visitor to appreciate the one of the intentions of the whole. They show such figures as Queen Victoria, John Keble, Bishop Butler, Richard Hooker, and Lancelot Andrewes - that is, figures that represent the history of the Anglican Church with a specific reference to the High Church tradition in that Church. A Catholic is struck by a certain incongruity in seeing representations of the medieval saints such as Bernard and Francis, the Tudor humanists Thomas More, Dean Colet and Erasmus and key figures of the Reformation such as Wycliffe, Cranmer and Coverdale. Along with the intention to show the history of the Church in England, there is an implied assertion that the Anglican Church of today lies in a continuity with the Church of the medieval times and the times of the Fathers.

So Truro Cathedral is a very different visit than our previous visits to Cathedrals.

All the Cathedrals (10): St Albans

Zero and I visited St Albans recently, to tick off another of England's cathedrals.

The Cathedral website has a highlights page here. The story of the martyrdom of St Alban is here. Other aspects of the history of the Abbey/Cathedral can be found on links from those pages.

Visiting the Cathedral today, there is no readily visible evidence of the different vicissitudes that have been suffered by the building over the centuries. There is no evidence, at least not that we saw, of the Anglo-Saxon church or medieval church that might typically have existed before the construction of the Norman church (if I understand correctly, any such structures were not on the same site but nearby, and the construction of the Norman church was undertaken to take advantage of the top of the hill on which the Cathedral now exists). Neither is there any evidence (unless you look closely, and then there are only clues arising from the later restoration of the Cathedral) of the destruction and decay of the Church building that occurred after the dissolution of the monastery by Henry VIII's commissioner. All the statues in the Cathedral today, for example, date from 19th and 20th century restoration work, as does the stained glass. St Albans changed hands several times during the Civil War, with Parliament finally holding it. The Cathedral was then used to hold prisoners of war, the consequent damage from which is also no longer evident.

The Cathedral does have some lovely elements, such as the reredos behind the high altar and the Lady Chapel behind the sanctuary at the east end.

There are also the statues of Christian martyrs in the reredos behind the nave altar. St Alban and the priest who he protected are accompanied, among others, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero and one of the Protestant martyrs who suffered during the reign of Mary. This does not leave a uniformly satisfactory impression - I could not quite decide whether I should recognise it as genuine effort at ecumenical understanding or a manifestation, with the best of intentions, of a degree of religious indifferentism. One might also wonder about it as an example of cultural appropriation in a religious context ….

I also found that the building as a whole left an incoherent impression. Individual elements just seemed to exist with no relation to others - mediaeval wall paintings on the pillars on one side of the nave with decorated pillars on the opposite side that replaced previously collapsed pillars, but with no effort to match the two sides at all. Plaster over Roman brick in the transepts reflects the original construction of the Cathedral, but does not convey any majesty.

All in all, given that it is a Church dedicated to the first Christian martyr of England (and the restored shrine does contain a relic of St Alban) I found it a disappointment.

All the Cathedrals (8): Worcester Cathedral

Zero and I visited Worcester at the February half term, so we were there for Ash Wednesday. We weren't able to make Mass on the day, and so frequented the Cathedral for their evening service, with imposition of ashes. The crosses on our foreheads were sufficiently dramatic to be noticed as we walked out for our supper afterwards!

Worcester Cathedral shares a narrative common to a number of English cathedrals: first foundation in Anglo-Saxon times; a Benedictine monastic phase brought to an end by the Henry VIII's dissolution of the monastery and establishing of a Cathedral and chapter; significant damage as a result of the attention of the Parliamentary side during the Civil War (though the extent of this is hardly apparent today, with the only visible defacing in the Hall); and subsequent measures of restoration. The names of St Oswald and St Wulfstan are associated with the building of the Cathedral, the latter continuing to hold the see after the Norman conquest. A summary history of the building can be found here.

The restored Norman crypt is very striking, in part because of its contrast to the construction of the later Cathedral above it.

King John, of Magna Carta fame, had extensive connections with Worcester and his tomb lies in the choir of the Cathedral, before the high altar. (The tomb would appear to have escaped the attention of the Parliamentarians at the time of the Civil War.)

There is also a chantry chapel to Prince Arthur, oldest brother of the future Henry VIII and first wife of Catherine of Aragon, who died before he could succeed to the throne.

A striking feature for an Anglican Cathedral is the window dedicated to Sir Edward Elgar. Though Elgar was a Catholic, he had a strong musical link to Worcester Cathedral and to the Three Choirs Festival. The window represents Elgar's Dream of Gerontius, a strikingly Catholic theme. The Cathedral is just a stone's throw from the modern shop that now occupies the site of the Elgar's family music shop.

Much of the stained glass in the Cathedral dates from the Victorian restoration, with the West window depicting the story of the creation while the East window tells the story of Jesus life, death and resurrection. A repair of the West window was still underway at the time of our visit, with scaffolding in place on the exterior hiding the otherwise distinctive view from the river. Many of the fittings that we see today date from this Victorian restoration. The reredos of the high altar by Sir George Gilbert Scott, for example, represents Christ enthroned with the four Evangelists. The effect is to render almost imperceptible to the contemporary visitor the damage done during the Civil War - it is only in the School Hall that a defaced image remains visible. The Victorian restoration also replaced the majority of the external stone work, which disguises the earlier history of the Church as the visitor approaches from the outside.

 

A much more recent restoration programme has taken action to preserve both the appearance and structure of the Cathedral.

 

There is a cloister with memorials in the glass windows. Access to the river can be gained by passing through the grounds and down a walk way. Set in the wall are stones that mark the water levels reached by floods of the Severn.

 

 

As a city, Worcester suffers from a bit of a split personality. The High Street is occupied with many modern buildings that have replaced some of the older buildings, such as the music shop owned by Edward Elgar's parents. Friar Street and New Street, however, have preserved a number of their older buildings, including the public house from which Charles I is said to have made his escape after the second Battle of Worcester. A number of the businesses in these streets occupy premises that retain features of historic interest.

All the Cathedrals (7): Brecon

There is a short climb up a hill from the town centre in order to reach Brecon Cathedral. As Cathedrals go, it is on the small side, but it gains something of clean lines as a result. The information panels that are displayed in the Cathedral can be downloaded from the Cathedral website (it is best to use the "download pdf" link from each of the pages, and to read the downloaded version). Following each of these information panels will allow you to make a "virtual visit" to the Cathedral.

The present Cathedral has a foundation in Norman times, though another Church may have pre-dated it on the site. Like a number of English Cathedrals, it shares the narrative of Benedictine monastery established or rebuilt in the Norman time, with the monastic community coming to an end with the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII. Before dissolution, it appears to have been a centre of pilgrimage, with the crucifix of its rood screen being the subject of particular veneration by visitors. Unlike some of the larger Cathedrals, after the dissolution, Brecon became a parish church. It gained its status as a Cathedral as recently as 1923. Some rebuilding took place in the 14th century, and, like a number of other Cathedrals, there was a restoration in the Victorian era.

The oldest feature of the Church is thought to be its font, dating from the  original Norman foundation (see the first of the information panels). A nearby stone column features a number of mediaeval stone masons marks.

At the time of our visit, the sacrament was reserved in a veiled tabernacle in the St Keynes chapel (see the information panel on the St Keynes chapel) rather than the wall shrine more customary for the Church of England, suggesting a worship of an ecclesiastically "high" character. An interesting feature of this chapel is the stained glass window showing Brychan, Cynog and Alud, pioneers of Christianity in the area.

Another feature of the Cathedral, that is well described in the relevant information panel, is the Harvard Chapel in its role as the Regimental chapel of what is now, after the amalgamation of its former regiments, the Royal Welsh regiment. Do download and read the information panel. A visit to this chapel acts as a reminder of the impact on local communities of warfare on the scale that was seen in the 20th century.

The highlight for me, however, was the reredos in the main sanctuary of the Cathedral. This is described in the information panel on the sanctuary on the website. Dating from 1937, it really is a lovely work. Where the reformation sought to remove such features as the previous reredos and the rood screen with its venerated crucifix, the presence of this reredos restores something of a Catholic character to the Church.

Brecon Cathedral enjoys a more "homely" feel than some of the other Cathedrals that we have visited, and this is probably due to its smaller size. It is worth the walk up the hill to visit.

All the Cathedrals (6): Leicester

I think we visited Leicester before any idea of visiting Cathedral towns had occurred to us. At the time of our visit Leicester City Football Club were atop the Premier League, and Richard III had not been that longed interred at the Cathedral. Indeed, it was the opening of the visitor centre on the site of the discovery of Richard III's remains that provided the reason for our visit.

Walking from the railway station to the Richard III visitor centre took us first of all into a shopping area that might have been in any town. However, the Lanes represents a quite different experience, with small shops and narrow streets. We wandered the market at one point in the day, too.

The Richard III visitor centre is well worth a visit. The presentation of the story of the discovery of Richard III's remains beneath a council car park, and the subsequent investigations that confirmed that these remains were indeed him, is excellent (though the detail might put some off from following the whole story). The last room in the visit contains a glass panel in the floor which allows you to look down at the very place where the remains were found. Since nothing else is displayed in this room, it provides a very reflective end to a visit. The more you know about the Wars of the Roses the more you will appreciate the significance of Richard III and his connection to Leicester. [If you can make anything of the Wikipedia page you have a better brain than mine. Desmond Seward's A Brief History of The Wars of the Roses is my own reading on the subject.]

We then crossed the nearby square to visit Richard III's tomb in Leicester Cathedral. We had to queue for a few minutes before accessing the tomb. The presentation is, like the last room of the visitor centre, very reflective.

The cathedral building itself was only relatively recently designated as a Cathedral, which means that it has something more of the character of a parish church. It shares, in a slightly different way than other cathedrals we have visited, the narrative of Saxon foundation, followed by a Norman construction, a stripping of statues and decoration at the time of the reformation (the Greyfriars monastery where Richard III's remains had been interred was closed at this point) and Victorian restoration. The history of the cathedral building is outlined here. This page allows you to take a virtual walk round the cathedral; the links from the side bar at the top of the page allow you to read more about the main features of the building.

A Lancastrian, of course, will not patronise the White Rose café as a matter of conscience!

All the Cathedrals (5): Durham

Our visit to Durham Cathedral was part of a long weekend visit that Zero and I took to Durham, courtesy of a recently purchased Two Together railcard and Advance tickets (ie as economic an arrangement of train travel as possible). Ed Balls, then an active politician rather than a star of Strictly Come Dancing, was on the train that was in front of us on the East Coast mainline, and which broke down just north of Peterborough delaying us for over an hour .... which meant we could reclaim the cost of that part of our journey. Our weekend took us to the Beamish Museum (follow the "Explore and Discover" links in the menu at the top left), with a ride on a "heritage" Blackpool tram .... but not that "heritage", as it was exactly like the trams I can remember travelling on when I was being raised in the Blackpool area. We also visited Crookhall Gardens, which can be found readily just off the centre of Durham city itself.

It is worth arriving in Durham by train, as, particularly arriving from the south, there is a splendid view of the Cathedral from the viaduct carrying the railway.

Durham Cathedral takes part in the not uncommon narrative of Benedictine community, Romanesque building at the time of the Norman conquest, dissolution of the monastic community and establishing of a Cathedral see with a chapter of canons at the time of Henry VIII and a further intrusion at the time of the Civil War. This page at the Cathedral website gives an outline of its history. These video clips give an idea of the setting and the architecture of the Cathedral: Durham Cathedral: Builders & Buildings and Durham, England: Magnificent Norman Cathedral. Zero and I enjoyed a stroll along the river bank that encircles the Cathedral on three sides.

Links from this page will tell you something of the different areas of interest in the Cathedral building. Do explore these links, as doing so will provide something of the experience of visiting the Cathedral. A visit to the Cathedral's tower provides superb views of the surrounding countryside.

An additional dimension of the history of Durham Cathedral is its role as the shrine of St Cuthbert. The shrine was destroyed at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, and the tomb damaged. An account of the shrine can be found here, and the remains of the tomb itself have been preserved. It is interesting that the Church of England appears willing now to restore a shrine such as this, perhaps from a mixture of historical and religious motivation. The Galilee Chapel of the Cathedral also houses a shrine enclosing the bones of St Bede.

Durham itself has a very young feel to it, especially if you visit during term time. The collegiate nature of the university is reflected as you walk up the hill to visit the Cathedral, as you pass entrances to a number of university buildings. Durham is built on a hill, so visitors should expect to walk up and down rather than along the flat.

All the Cathedrals (4): Winchester

Winchester, located close to Southampton, was one of the earlier Cathedral visits that Zero and I undertook. It is accessible by car from the M3 and by train from London Waterloo (if I recall correctly). The location close to the south coast of England is reflected in some of the history of the Cathedral.

 

[Image credit: WyrdLight.com, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23281174]

An impression I remember from our visit is that of gaining a sense of a Cathedral site that integrates into the life of the city itself - a shopping street and market are immediately adjacent to one side of the Cathedral - and the Cathedral greens were occupied by visitors enjoying the sunshine. Visiting on a Saturday probably emphasised this more than would otherwise have been the case. Norwich and Ely cathedrals also have some of this sense, though less so, Norwich because the Cathedral is a bit to one side of the city centre and Ely because it is a small city.

Winchester Cathedral shares several of the typical features already noted of the history of English cathedrals. A Saxon building dated from the 7th century, and by the beginning of the 11th century it was a Cathedral, the home of a monastic community following the rule of St Benedict, and a place of pilgrimage to a shrine housing the remains of St Swithun, a former bishop of Winchester. After the arrival of the Normans, this "Old Minster" was replaced by a new Church built next to it in the Norman/Romanesque style (substantially the present day Cathedral). At the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, the Benedictine community was dispersed, the cloister of the cathedral destroyed and the shrine of St Swithun ransacked (a form of shrine has been reinstated). The statues in the "Great Screen" behind the high altar were also destroyed - the present day statues are replacements dating from the 19th Century.

The Winchester Cathedral website is very informative, and well worth exploring. The Wikipedia page for Winchester Cathedral allows you to enlarge a good range of images of some of the significant features of the Cathedral.

This page at the Winchester Cathedral website gives an idea of the history of the building: Our History. This page traces the architectural history of the Cathedral: Building the Cathedral.

Famous people associated with Winchester Cathedral can be found on this page, Jane Austen being perhaps the most noted, with a discrete grave in the Cathedral. (Follow the links from each entry on this page for informative accounts of each individual.)

This page provides links to images of some of the features of the Cathedral, with the crypt and Antony Gormley's Sound II perhaps most notable. When we visited, the crypt was partly flooded, and the sculpture had a quite eerie look to it.

One comes away from Winchester Cathedral with a sense of having delved deeply into the history of England, but at the same time having visited a building that is still a "living" building that continues to grow and develop. Winchester itself also has several other places of interest to visit or walks that can be undertaken.

All the Cathedrals (3): Norwich

The Wikipedia entry gives an account of the history of Norwich Cathedral. The video clip linked from the top of Norwich Cathedral's website (direct link to YouTube is here)gives a very good impression of a number of different aspects of the Cathedral. This page at the Cathedral website gives an indication of what there is to see at the Cathedral: Things to See and Do (and follow each of the links on the left hand side of the page). We joined one of the guided tours, and found that a most useful way to learn about the Cathedral. The Cathedral has shared in the familiar narrative with regard to the dissolution of the monasteries and the visitation of the Parliamentary soldiers roughly 100 years later (this latter led to a "gap" during which the Cathedral buildings had no ecclesiastical use at all).

One of the things I remember from our visit is the sense of perspective that could be found looking along the length of the side aisle of the nave (framed by Romanesque/Norman arches) and along the sides of the cloister (framed by Gothic arches). Though the site began as a Benedictine monastery, the cloister that is such a feature of the Cathedral architecture does not date from a monastic usage.

A modern visitor centre and refectory have been built on to two sides of the cloister, so that visitors are welcomed in a way that suggests a Cathedral that still lives and develops rather than one that is just a building from the past.

Edith Cavell's tomb lies within the Cathedral grounds, and there is a memorial to her outside the Cathedral.

The walk from the railway station to the Cathedral suggested that Norwich is a city that combines some more run down areas with more elegant areas. The railway station building itself is somewhat elegant... The area around the Cathedral itself is very pleasant, and, on a summer day, the walk along the river and through the grounds of the Cathedral close is rewarding.

All the Cathedrals (1): Oxford...

( .... with apologies to Geoff and Vicki at All the Stations).

For some time now, Zero and I have been making use of a Two Together railcard to visit towns with cathedrals. Our visit to Oxford ignored Christ Church cathedral and instead took in Keble College, and the chapel there. One realises in later life  just how much one should have appreciated something when living next door to it in one's younger days.

An account of the architecture of the chapel at Keble can be found here; and images of the mosaics that decorate the walls of the chapel can be found by following the links from this page.

Together the windows and mosaics are intended to show God's dealings with his people through history. They therefore include Old Testament figures such as Abraham, Moses and Joseph - seen as prefiguring the person of Christ himself. The saving work of Christ is also represented by its prefiguration in the offering of Melchisedech and Abraham's intercession on behalf of Sodom. Christ's own life and death are also represented in the mosaics. In keeping with the spirit of the Oxford Movement, saints and fathers of the Church are also represented. As you leave the chapel, it is the scene of the last judgement that faces you above the door.

The underlying principles of the decoration are profoundly liturgical, and oriented to the celebration of a worship which renewed in the Church of England its catholic sense. The inspiration for the decoration of the Chapel is John Keble's The Christian Year - those more familiar with John Keble than I am will appreciate this link.

The only other place I have seen anything like this is the Benedictine Abbey of St Hildegard, at Eibingen, across the River Rhine from Bingen. The guided tour of the Abbey Church indicates clearly how the decoration of the Church is designed to celebrate the living presence of God with his people through the course of history.

The experience of sitting in the nave at Eibingen, somewhat gobsmacked by the decoration of the Church came strongly to mind as I sat in Keble College chapel. Both churches are well worth a visit.