Ringing your bell

Kings Gate at Winchester Cathedral

As we drove up the motorway from Southampton towards Winchester, Pete told me he wasn’t sure if he’d ever heard the song Winchester Cathedral. That song had been playing in my head ever since we decided to go, so I did what we all do now and found the original version to play on my phone plus another version by Petula Clark. For your listening enjoyment (and maybe appreciation of those sideburns!), I have included the YouTube video of the original version below. Winchester Cathedral—the song—was written by Geoff Stephens in 1966 and performed originally by the New Vaudeville Band. Numerous versions have been created since, reaching the tops of billboard charts in several countries.

Listening to the lyrics, we puzzled why the song was called Winchester Cathedral; the words don’t mention much about the Cathedral or its location in England. The only reference to anything related to the cathedral is a brief mention of its bells¹. It could be about almost anyone, located anywhere in the world.

Anyway, we were headed to Winchester for something far less religious or musical: a 10k running race that Pete had entered. Neither of us had been there before so we decided to make a weekend of it.

The town is a lovely well-to-do market town in Southern England. In addition to the Cathedral and the bustling city centre high streets, the River Itchen (great name, right? and so fun to say out loud) flows through and around the town, creating some lovely parks and riverside walks. Due to the benevolence of various wealthy bishops and other citizens over the years, there are also numerous private institutions for learning throughout the town, built of architecturally interesting stone and brick and surrounded by well-tended gardens and peaceful squares. It seems that spring was already flowering here and I was over the moon to see so many blossoming flowers.

The river Itchen has been tamed and rerouted around the city, but the walking path along the tamed waterways is perfectly bucolic.

When we arrived Saturday morning, there was a lively outside market in full-swing along the main street with traders selling prepared food as well as local delicacies such as cheese and wines, wool and other woven clothing, local artwork and crafts, and so much more.

Like most cathedral cities, Winchester Cathedral’s long history is interwoven with the town. For a New World native, I am still so impressed by the number of years of history in my Old World home. The first church or “Old Minster” was constructed around 650. After Winchester became the capital of England around 828, a couple of hundred years later, the Norman cathedral was built and eventually consecrated in 1093. One of it’s many outstanding features is the enormous Great West window of stained glass which had been traditionally designed with religious scenes and important biblical stories and characters.

Time passed; well, actually a LOT of time (!). During the 1642-1648 civil war, there was a takeover of the cathedral from the royalist Cavaliers by Parliamentary forces. The Parliamentarians, in their fury and alcohol-fuelled spirit, took bones from disinterred royals and bishops buried in the Cathedral and flung them at the window, along with firing their muskets, breaking the window panes into piles of broken glass².

After the glass was shattered, local residents swept up what they could (along with the bones) and hid all of it in their houses for almost 20 years before it was safe to bring them out again. In the 1660s the cathedral window was reconstructed from all the broken glass, only now in the colourful mosaic pattern we see today. Amazingly, it looks very contemporary well over 300 years later. It is hard to imagine the task that was undertaken back in 1660 (1660!).

A few more random facts we learned or observed:

• There is currently a whale exhibition in the space, with live whale sounds filling the space with their ethereal music. Most of the guides did not seem to like that ‘contemporary’ sort of activity. I think it is always fabulous when new art fills old spaces in temporary installations. The juxtaposition brings a wonderful fresh energy to the space.

  

• Jane Austen lived the last days of her life in Winchester and is buried in the cathedral. Although her brothers adored her, there is no mention of her successful writing as it was not a career to be proud of in that time. Later this year there will be a celebration of the 250th anniversary of her birth in Winchester (and many more celebrations at the Jane Austen Center in Bath.)

  

  The Jane Austen memorial stone in the Cathedral.

• As we walked towards the back of the Cathedral I noticed we were walking over numerous beautiful ceramic tiles. According to the Cathedral website, dating largely from the 13th Century, “The Retrochoir tile pavement at Winchester Cathedral is among the most significant collections of in-situ medieval tiles in Europe.” Apparently, one of the scholars recently studying the tiles, recreated the various tiles by using local clays and pigments, and hand stamping the patterns. He fired the clay tiles in a self-built kiln in his back yard over the course of a summer.

Reproductions of medieval tiles

• There are carvings in stone and wood everywhere. The carvings in the Quire—where the choir and priests sit, stand and kneel during services—are whimsical and many of the creatures and humans are making funny faces. Besides an astonishing number of botanical species, there are also mythological creatures carved into the wood carefully placed in tight corners so that they can’t cause mischief.

Because it is so old, the Cathedral has been reconstructed and/or torn down in places for centuries. There are also bits of sculptures with missing heads, or body parts, but they keep everything. It is either reused, put back together again, or repurposed. New testing technologies are currently allowing them to figure out—for example—with the earlier mentioned pile of bones, to identify whose femur goes with which patella, and into which funereal box they belong.

The second day we went back to the museum and chanced upon a choir practicing for a later service. Not to sound trite, but the sound was heavenly. Here is a sample of what it sounded like:

Although in the pop song the singer was let down by the Cathedral, I found it astonishingly fascinating, and I am someone who really doesn’t got excited by history. But I was taken in by the tales of the many pilgrims, and the town recreating their beloved stained glass window, and I haven’t even told you about William Walker who worked for FIVE YEARS (1906-1911) diving underwater every day under the corner foundations of the Cathedral that were sinking into the soggy peat, placing bags of concrete to stabilise it.

In the end, I was smitten by our experiences of both religious architecture and music, and the 10k was almost an afterthought (for me anyway). Pete was delighted to have run his best time, so it was a success all around. Interestingly, we only heard the cathedral bells ring once in the two days we were there, so apparently we weren’t worthy of ringing the bells either but I’m OK with that.

Thanks friends for reading this week! Let me know if you’ve been to Winchester and if so, what you thought of it. Did you hear the Cathedral bells? Do you like the song? Do you wish those lamb chop sideburns would come back in fashion? 😉

Wishing you glimpses of Spring or Autumn wherever you are.

xoxo Sabrina

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1. Winchester Cathedral
You're bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
My baby left town

You could have done something
But you didn't try
You didn't do nothing
You let her walk by

Now everyone knows just how much I needed that gal
She wouldn't have gone far away
If only you'd started ringing your bell

Winchester Cathedral
You're bringing me down
You stood and you watched as
My baby left town

Written by: Johnny Pacheco, Geoff Stephens

Album: The Hits Of New Vaudeville Band

Released: 2009

Lyrics provided by Musixmatch

2. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/great-west-window-winchester-cathedral