The 50 Greatest Churches and Cathedrals E-Book

Sue Dobson

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Serie: The 50
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 262

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2017

Beschreibung

Cathedrals and great churches are among the most iconic sights of the world's towns and cities. Visible from miles around, the cathedrals of Canterbury, St Paul's, Chartres and St Stephen's in Vienna dominate their skylines. Others surprise by their statistics: Salisbury has Britain's tallest spire, Wells the largest display of medieval sculptures in the world, while King's College Chapel in Cambridge boasts the largest fan vaulting in existence. Not all are ancient: Dresden's reconstructed Frauenkirche opened in 2005 and Gaudi's masterpiece in Barcelona is still under construction. Award-winning travel writer Sue Dobson gives us a highly personal tour of their highlights.

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eISBN: 978-178578-284-8

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sue Dobson is an award-winning travel writer and magazine editor with a passion for discovering the world, its art, music, religions and cultures. A lifetime of travelling has taken her through all seven continents and her work is published in guidebooks, magazines and online. Home is a pretty village in the English countryside, but she’s never happier than when out exploring – churches and cathedrals being high on her list of ‘must-sees’. She is a member of the British Guild of Travel Writers and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society.

DISCLAIMER

The descriptions given in these articles are for general guidance only, and should not be used as a substitute for a proper travel guide or route plan. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be liable or responsible for any loss, injury or damage allegedly arising from any information contained in this book.

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

THE 50 GREATEST CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS OF THE WORLD

UNITED KINGDOM AND IRELAND

England

Church of Christ, Canterbury

Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Lincoln

Cathedral Church of Christ, Blessed Mary the Virgin and St Cuthbert, Durham

York Minster

Cathedral Church of St Andrew, Wells

St Paul’s Cathedral, London

Cathedral Church of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, Ely

Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew, Peterborough

St Michael’s Cathedral, Coventry

King’s College Chapel, Cambridge

St Mary the Virgin, Wellingborough

St Kyneburgha, Castor

Ireland

St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin

Scotland

St Magnus Cathedral, Kirkwall

Wales

St Davids Cathedral, Pembrokeshire

EUROPE

Austria

St Stephen’s Cathedral, Vienna

Salzburg Cathedral, Salzburg

Belgium

Cathedral Of Our Lady, Antwerp

Czech Republic

St Vitus Cathedral, Prague

Finland

Temppeliaukio Church, Helsinki

France

Cathedral Of Notre-Dame, Strasbourg

Vézelay Abbey, Burgundy

Notre-Dame De La Garde, Marseilles

Germany

Cologne Cathedral, Cologne

Aachen Cathedral, Aachen

Marienkirche, Lübeck

Hungary

Mátyás-Templom, Budapest

Iceland

Hallgrímskirkja, Reykjavík

Italy

The Pantheon, Rome

Basilica Of San Clemente, Rome

Basilica Of Saint Francis Of Assisi, Assisi

Cathedral Of Monreale, Sicily

Malta

St John’s Co-Cathedral, Valetta

Norway

Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim

Poland

Church Of Peace, Świdnica

St Mary’s Basilica, Kraków

Portugal

Jerónimos Monastery, Lisbon

Romania

The Painted Monasteries And Churches Of Bucovina

Russia

Holy Trinity Lavra, Sergiev Posad

Cathedral Of Christ The Saviour, Moscow

St Isaac’s Cathedral, St Petersburg

Spain

La Sagrada Familia, Barcelona

Seville Cathedral, Seville

Turkey

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul

Ukraine

Monastery Of The Caves, Kiev

Australia

St Mary’s Cathedral, Sydney

AFRICA

Ethiopia

The Rock-Hewn Churches Of Lalibela, Lalibela

NORTH AMERICA

Canada

Notre-Dame Basilica, Montréal

USA

Washington National Cathedral, Washington DC

SOUTH AMERICA

Brazil

Metropolitan Cathedral, Rio De Janeiro

INTRODUCTION

More than 10 million people visit England’s cathedrals in a year and all over Europe church buildings regularly top visitor lists. No museum or art gallery, however large or impressive, can equal the sensation of looking up into the Bell Harry Tower at Canterbury Cathedral or stepping under the fan vaulting in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge. Nothing can compare with experiencing the vast spaces of shimmering mosaics at Monreale, the acres of medieval glass at York or indeed imagining Giotto at work creating the glorious frescoes that cover whole walls in Assisi. The sheer beauty of so much art and artistry in one place can overwhelm the senses and the emotions.

Cathedrals inspire awe and wonder, not least for the incredible craftsmanship involved in their creation. Who were these people who centuries, even a thousand years ago, could not only visualise such grandeur but had the mathematical knowledge to make it happen and the skills to build it? Even today, with all the technology at our fingertips, architects and engineers still marvel at the construction of Ely Cathedral’s octagon and lantern. Michelangelo and Brunelleschi looked to the 2nd-century Pantheon in Rome for knowledge and inspiration before constructing their own famous domes.

Visible from miles around, cathedrals dominate city skylines. Some, like London’s St Paul’s, St Vitus in Prague, Cologne’s twin spires and the innovative Hallgrímskirkja in Reykjavík, are among a country’s most iconic sights. Dotted across the countryside, church spires herald a distant town or village. If cathedrals tell the story of a city, a parish church is the repository of local history. Exploring them can be fascinating.

The great age of cathedral building began in the 11th century under the Normans. After the Conquest (1066) they quickly set about building or rebuilding England’s great abbeys and cathedrals in the commanding Romanesque style that exuded power. Architecture favoured in northern France, it used rounded, semi-circular arches and massive columns and walls to support the weight of heavy roofs.

Then during the 12th century a new style emerged, again from northern France, with sophisticated techniques that would reduce the weight on walls via pointed arches, ribbed vaults and flying buttresses, allow for more window space and open up a raft of technical and engineering possibilities.

Now known as Gothic (actually a derogatory term invented much later), as architects and masons created ever more daring and complex designs, the Gothic pointed arch evolved through various incarnations into the 16th century and was revived in the early 19th. Buildings rose to ever more dizzying heights, decoration became ever more detailed and ornate.

It was during the high medieval period of the 12th and 13th centuries that most of Britain’s and Europe’s greatest cathedrals were constructed in the Gothic style that emphasised height and light. The building of them often spanned a century or more and it’s interesting to see how new styles were incorporated as fashions in architecture changed.

After Gothic came Renaissance (and the invention of perspective in art, so clearly shown in Assisi and on the domes above the Choir of St Paul’s) and the opulence of Baroque (the interior of St John’s Co-Cathedral in Valetta, Malta being a prime example of over-the-top riches) before the return to more classical lines and modern architectural designs.

Ecclesiastical buildings suffered greatly after Henry VIII’s break with Rome, during the English Civil War and as a result of the Reformation that spread across Europe. And yet most survived to rise again and tell their tales down succeeding centuries, continuing to delight and fascinate their millions of visitors.

Incidentally, what makes a Christian church a cathedral has nothing to do with size. Situated at the heart of a diocese, a cathedral is a bishop’s church. It is the site of the bishop’s chair (‘cathedra’, from the Latin for chair) or throne, symbol of the bishop’s (or in some cases archbishop’s) ecclesiastical and spiritual authority. Given that bishops were extremely powerful people in the Middle Ages, their churches had to be suitably grand in size and embellishment as befitted the importance both of the dignitary himself and of the Church in society.

Testimony to the skills of engineers and mathematicians, stonemasons and sculptors, carpenters and woodcarvers, fresco painters and stained glass artists, cathedrals and churches are treasure houses of art and history. Keeping these ancient buildings beautiful for our enjoyment and use as houses of prayer costs a fortune and many have resorted to charging entrance fees to visitors (though never to attend services or to drop in for quiet moments of prayer). How much poorer we would all be if they were allowed to crumble through lack of upkeep.

The choice of just 50 cathedrals and churches across the world is inevitably a personal one. Through these pages I hope you won’t be too disappointed if your favourite is not included but rather find some interesting surprises.

Spanning the centuries, they have been chosen for their architectural and decorative interest as well as for the stories they have to tell so, while highlighting their history and standout features, I’ve tried to pinpoint the must-sees, the don’t-miss elements of each one.

I hope you will enjoy reading about them but most of all, I hope this book will inspire you to go visiting and make your own wonderful discoveries.

THE 50 GREATEST CHURCHES AND CATHEDRALS OF THE WORLD

UNITED KINGDOM and IRELAND

– ENGLAND –

CHURCH OF CHRIST, CANTERBURY

The Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and shrine to the rebirth of Christianity in England, is host to more than a million visitors a year. Every hour, on the hour, they are asked to be still and join in a prayer – a reminder that, spectacular though the building is, Canterbury Cathedral is very much a working church.

Huge and intricate, overpowering and dramatic, it is a multi-layered cathedral, each level reached by steps shaped by centuries of pilgrim feet. It was the brutal murder, at an altar in his own cathedral, of Archbishop Thomas Becket by four of King Henry II’s knights on 29 December 1170 and accounts of miraculous healing immediately after his death, that brought the Christian world to its doors in the Middle Ages. Becket’s was one of the holiest shrines in all Europe and pilgrimages continue to this day.

Founded in 597, it was rebuilt in 1070 and then largely rebuilt and extended in creamy-white Caen stone in 1178. A devastating fire four years earlier had demolished most of the previous cathedral, though the vast and atmospheric 11th-century crypt with its rounded arches and decorated columns, naves, aisles and side chapels, survives to present us with some of the finest Norman stone carvings on pier capitals in England.

They range from geometric to floral to entire stories that are often comical or violent. Look for animal musicians and winged beasts, rams’ heads, knights doing battle and a rather appealing lion. The 12th-century wall paintings in the crypt’s St Gabriel’s Chapel, which include the Archangel Gabriel announcing the birth of John the Baptist to the elderly Zacharias, are the oldest known Christian paintings in the country.

Long, light, tall and graceful, the nave has slim, soaring columns rising to delicate vaulted arches and gilt roof bosses. Looking back you see the glorious west window, its stained glass dating back 800 years; ahead of you, a wide flight of steps leads up to the richly carved, 15th-century stone pulpitum (choir screen) that separates the nave from the choir. Within its niches are original effigies of six English kings that somehow escaped the swords of the Puritans who, during the Civil War of the 1640s, destroyed the accompanying statues of the twelve Apostles during their rampage of destruction through the cathedral. They even stabled their horses in the nave.

Through the screen’s archway you get an inspirational view up to the high altar. Stand under the great Bell Harry Tower, and marvel at the stupendous fan vaulting high above you.

From the north-west transept, steps lead down to the Martyrdom Chapel. The site of Becket’s murder is marked with a simple altar and a dramatic modern sculpture of jagged swords. Nearby, the circular Corona Chapel, built to house the skull fragment of the crown of the head of St Thomas Becket, sliced off by the sword of one of the attackers, is dedicated to saints and martyrs of our own times.

The powerful choir is Early French Gothic in style, built between 1175 and 1185 and the first major example of Gothic architecture in Britain. The architect, master mason William (Guillaume) de Sens, was badly injured when he fell from scaffolding while inspecting the central roof boss – depicting a lamb and flag in blue and gold, a symbol of the Resurrection – in 1178. His assistant, William the Englishman, continued and completed the work, including the graceful Trinity Chapel behind the high altar.

The Trinity Chapel is where Becket’s relics once rested in a magnificent gold and jewel-encrusted shrine, destroyed in 1538 on the orders of King Henry VIII. Cart loads of treasure boosted the royal coffers – a large ruby, given by the King of France, is now part of the crown jewels in the Tower of London.

Two years later, as part of the dissolution of the monasteries, Henry closed down the Benedictine monastery that had surrounded the cathedral since the 10th century. Today a solitary burning candle marks the site of the shrine; the flooring, with its beautiful Italian marble paving, survives and dates from 1220.

The chapel houses the tomb and superb bronze chain mailed effigy of Edward the Black Prince, eldest son of King Edward III and father of King Richard II, who died in 1376. His military victories, especially over the French in the Battles of Crécy and Poitiers, made him a popular figure at home (though not, unsurprisingly, in France, where he was considered an evil invader and occupier).

Opposite, lies his nephew, King Henry IV (d.1413), the only king to be buried in Canterbury Cathedral, and his wife, Joan of Navarre, Queen of England. Finely detailed alabaster effigies show them side by side, crowned in gold.

Trinity Chapel is also where you’ll find St Augustine’s Chair, the ceremonial enthronement chair of the Archbishop of Canterbury. Made from one piece of Petworth marble, it dates from the early 13th century.

Pilgrims to the shrine would have gazed in awe at the luminous stained glass of brilliant hue that portrays miracles attributed to the saint. Roundels in the aptly named Miracle Windows in the ambulatory begin with Becket at prayer and then a storyboard of scenes unfolds to tell of individuals who were cured of maladies from leprosy to blindness and myriad disabilities. Dating from the early 13th century, the colours are extraordinary – intense blue, striking reds, golden yellows, sharp greens – and the figures recognisably lifelike, studied yet full of movement.

Canterbury has a wealth of medieval stained glass. The colours are deep and vibrant and every image tells a story, whether biblical or of the cathedral’s own history. Look especially for the Bible and the Miracle windows, but all of it will stop you in your tracks.

The west window is also known as the genealogy window for it contains images of early English kings and royal coats of arms, archbishops and, in the tracery lights, an array of apostles and prophets, all glass from the late 12th or early 13th centuries. The oldest (c.1174), Adam Delving in the Garden of Eden, showing Adam as a peasant tilling the soil, is in the bottom row.

In the north choir aisle, two 12th-century Bible windows tell Old and New Testament stories, from Noah releasing the dove to St Peter preaching, the Magi following the star to the parable of the sower and Christ’s miracles, including the Marriage at Cana and the miraculous draught of fish.

When Pope Gregory sent St Augustine and his monks from Rome in 597, to restore the Christian faith to the Saxon English, they landed in Thanet and were welcomed by King Ethelbert (who would soon be baptised by Augustine) and his French Christian wife, Queen Bertha. Augustine was the first Archbishop of Canterbury.

A short walk from the cathedral lie the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey, founded in 598. The abbey, the cathedral and St Martin’s church are a World Heritage Site and are linked by Queen Bertha’s Walk. St Martin’s, believed to date back to Roman times and the oldest church in continuous use in England, is where St Augustine came to worship before he established his monastery.

The cathedral’s late medieval cloisters and large chapter house are remnants of the Benedictine monastic buildings. Originally set out by Archbishop Lanfranc in the 11th century and rebuilt in the early 15th, with their heavily ribbed lierne vaulted ceiling they are fine examples of the Perpendicular style – no surprise perhaps because they were remodelled by Stephen Lote, a pupil of the royal master mason Henry Yevele, who created the stunning nave. Roof bosses and heraldic shields tell of people who contributed to the rebuilding of the cathedral back in the 12th century and modern stained glass, installed in 2014, commemorates modern benefactors to the conservation of the building’s fabric.

Lanfranc also built the rectangular chapter house with stone seating for the monks around the walls and a raised chair for the prior. Made from Irish oak, the beautiful early 15th-century wagon vaulted ceiling was given by Prior Chillenden, as were the stained glass windows that depict important people in the history of the cathedral.

The top row of the east window shows Queen Bertha, St Augustine and King Ethelbert. King Henry VIII appears second left on the bottom row. The west window depicts scenes from the history of the cathedral, including the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket, the penance of King Henry II and the move of Becket’s bones to his shrine in 1220.

Entry to the cathedral and its precincts is via the impressive, turreted and highly decorated Christ Church Gate, one of the last parts of the monastic buildings to be erected before the Dissolution. Ironically, it may have been built to commemorate the marriage of Prince Arthur, elder brother of King Henry VIII, to Katharine of Aragon in 1502. (The young prince died a few months later and Henry went on to marry Katharine himself.)

Emerge from the gateway and take time to stand and stare. Of the cathedral’s three pinnacled towers, the central Bell Harry tower rises supreme. It dates from between 1493 and 1503, is 72 metres (235 feet) high and is named after the original bell given by Prior Henry. Inside, the exquisite fan vault interior of the tower is one of the most glorious sights of this most memorable of cathedrals.

CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY, LINCOLN

Crowning the city, its three vast towers visible for miles, Lincoln’s hilltop cathedral is one of the finest medieval buildings in Europe. It is huge – in terms of floor area, among English cathedrals only St Paul’s in London (page 43) and York Minster (page 34) are bigger – and it presents a dramatic and elegant face to the world.

The 14th-century towers, delicate, lacy and topped with sky-piercing pinnacles, rise up behind the west front’s 13th-century screen with its rows of Norman niches, Early Gothic blind arcading and handsome Norman doors.

The towers today are an impressive height, but when the central tower collapsed in 1237 its replacement was topped with a spire, reputedly making Lincoln’s cathedral the tallest man-made structure in the world, topping even Egypt’s Great Pyramid at Giza. It held that record for 238 years, until the 160-metre (525-foot)-spire blew down in a raging storm in 1548 and wasn’t replaced.

William the Conqueror ordered a cathedral to be built on the hill in Lincoln, sited next to his castle for security, and sent Bishop Remigius to supervise it. Constructed of locally quarried Lincolnshire limestone and consecrated in 1092, it commanded a vast diocese that stretched from the Humber estuary in the north to the River Thames in the south, spanning nine counties and encompassing several notable and wealthy monasteries.

After a devastating earthquake in 1185, Hugh of Avalon, a Carthusian monk of character, began the rebuilding of the cathedral, greatly enlarging it in the Early Gothic style, incorporating pointed arches, ribbed vaults, lancet windows and flying buttresses. Consecrated Bishop of Lincoln in 1186, he died in 1200 and was canonised in 1220 – in good time for the completion of the new cathedral, which saw pilgrims flocking to his shrine.

The long nave is soaring and lyrical, a space of beauty and light – especially when sunshine pours through the fine Victorian stained glass and dapples the limestone floor and piers with patterns of rich colour. Graceful arched stone ribs draw the eye heavenwards.

At the nave’s end, the elaborate choir screen is a tour de force of early 14th-century carving, alive with beasts, heads and fantasy creatures among leaves and flowers.

The Bishop’s Eye floods the great transept with light from on high. A magnificent circular rose window of precious medieval stained glass, its graceful tracery of leaves encases the glass with softly curving lines. Facing it on the north side, the earlier (13th-century) Dean’s Eye rose window has four circles surrounded by sixteen smaller ones, with some of its original Last Judgement narrative still discernible.

Ornate 13th-century doorways lead to the choir aisles – look for dragons hiding behind foliage and the sword-bearing men seeking them out – and bring you towards a forest of exquisite wood and stone carving of heart-stopping delicacy.

The angels, carved on the choir desks around 1370, play harps, pipes and a drum; etched in gold above the canopied and pinnacled choir stalls with their secretive misericords are the first lines of psalms each canon was appointed to read.

The Treasury is located in the north side choir aisle. It was the first open Treasury in an English cathedral and as well as Lincoln’s own silverware it contains other sacred pieces from churches around the diocese. The highlight is a medieval chalice hallmarked 1489.

Behind the high altar, the Gothic Angel Choir has a feast of stone carving and impressive stained glass windows. It was created to hold the shrine of St Hugh, whose following was so great that the cathedral had to be extended 80 years after his death to accommodate all the pilgrims. King Edward I and Queen Eleanor were among the great and the good that were there to see his body translated to the site prepared for him.

The infamous Lincoln imp has his place here among the host of presiding angels. The legend goes that the mischievous imp caused mayhem in the cathedral and when he started throwing rocks at the angels they turned him to stone. He may be quite difficult to spot high up in his spandrel, but his image has long been a symbol of the city.

The tomb of King Edward I’s beloved wife Eleanor of Castile, who died near Lincoln in 1290, contains the viscera from her embalmed body, which was borne with great ceremony to London. The king decreed that a monument should be erected at each of the twelve towns where the funeral procession stopped overnight on its journey south. Being topped by tall crosses, they became known as ‘Eleanor Crosses’.

Eleanor’s Lincoln tomb, a replica of that in Westminster Abbey, was badly damaged in the English Civil War by Oliver Cromwell’s forces during their siege of Lincoln in 1644 and the effigy seen above the stone chest is a 19th-century copy.

Among the many small chapels, some very poignant like the Airmen’s Chapel that especially remembers the men of Bomber Command who flew from nearby airfields in the Second World War, the Russell Chantry stands out for its murals painted by Bloomsbury Group member Duncan Grant in the 1950s.

Although never a monastic foundation, the cathedral has a fan vaulted chapter house (1220) and relatively small but attractive cloisters (1295) with Gothic arches and a wooden ceiling. King Edward I conducted meetings of Parliament in the Chapter House on three occasions and the stained glass windows tell of events in the cathedral’s history.

Above the cloisters, a thousand years of history are recorded in manuscripts and books. The 15th-century Medieval Library still retains many of its chained books and holds among its riches a 10th-century copy of homilies by the historian the Venerable Bede, hand painted atlases and a manuscript of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. The Wren Library, designed in 1674 by Sir Christopher Wren, the architect of St Paul’s Cathedral (page 43), is a beautiful setting for a fascinating collection of early printed books, including 100 printed before 1501. The libraries are open to the public between April and October.

For centuries it was where one of the only four surviving copies of Magna Carta, signed by King John in 1215, was held. The then Bishop of Lincoln, Hugh of Wells, was one of those present for the sealing at Runnymede. It is now on permanent loan to nearby Lincoln Castle, but a facsimile copy can be seen near the cloisters.

The Victorian writer John Ruskin wrote: ‘I have always held that the cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles.’ In its shadow, over Minster Yard, is the Medieval Bishop’s Palace while across the square William the Conqueror’s castle, dating from 1068, affords splendid views over the lower town and surrounding countryside.

CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF CHRIST, BLESSED MARY THE VIRGIN AND ST CUTHBERT, DURHAM

On its peninsula ridge above the wooded cliffs that rise up sheer from the fast-flowing River Wear, Durham Cathedral stands rock solid, a golden sandstone elegy to power and strength. Inside, that show of strength pervades in the unforgettable pillars that line the 11th-century nave. They are 6.6 metres (almost 22 feet) round, 6.6 metres high, and deeply carved in bold geometric patterns.

Full of architectural achievements way ahead of its time, the cathedral’s early monastic history is revealed not least in the slab of black marble set in the nave’s floor that marked the point beyond which no women were allowed to step.

Topped and tailed by two splendid chapels – the Galilee, or Lady Chapel at the west end with its 12th-century wall paintings, medieval glass and tomb of the great historian and scholar the Venerable Bede, and the spacious, stainedglass-filled Chapel of Nine Altars at the east end, overlooked by St Cuthbert’s Shrine – it is a church of surprises.

There’s vibrant, modern stained glass that reflects the local community’s involvement in a church for today; its interest in the wider world is revealed by a beautiful banner from Lesotho in Southern Africa, woven to commemorate the cathedral’s 900th birthday.

Prior Castell’s glorious Tudor clock in the south transept dates from the early 16th century and survived the Civil War. It is huge, ornate, brilliantly colourful and tells the time of day, the day of the month and the phases of the moon. Look carefully at the face – it has 48 (instead of the usual 60) minute markings.

Much of the cathedral’s colour comes from nature, from the swirls of cream, gold and orange in the sandstone walls and clear fossil patterns of the local Frosterley stone in pillars, to the boldly patterned marble floor of the choir.

The magnificent, intricate Neville Screen behind the high altar was carved from Caen stone in the 1370s. Behind that screen is the tomb of the gentle, holy St Cuthbert, the shepherd boy who became Bishop of Lindisfarne and brought the Christian faith to this area of North-east England. He died in 687 and is the reason the cathedral was built.

Cuthbert was revered in Lindisfarne (or Holy Island) but when it came under frequent attacks by Danes, the monks left to seek refuge in Northumbria, carrying with them the body of their Bishop. In 995, so the legend goes, the cart bearing the coffin suddenly stopped and could not be moved. Following a route taken by dairymaids searching for a lost dun (brown) cow, they were led to a rocky outcrop above the river Wear, and once more the cart moved easily. Believing this to be a sign from Cuthbert that this should be his last resting place, the monks built a small church and shrine there. To this day, the road leading up to the hilltop site of Durham Cathedral is called Dun Cow Lane.

After the Norman Conquest in 1066, William I chose Durham as his preferred location from which to administer the north of his kingdom and protect it against invasion by raiding Scots. Seeing the defensive value of the position of the church holding the relics of the saint, which had by then become a popular pilgrimage site, he ordered the building of a castle, a monastery and a cathedral for the shrine of St Cuthbert.

Work began on the cathedral in 1093 under the command of William of St Calais, whom William the Conqueror had appointed to be the first Prince-Bishop. For the next almost 800 years, Durham’s prince-bishops carried out a secular as well as a religious role, governing and protecting England’s northern frontier, often more warriors than churchmen, living like kings and wielding significant power.

William’s cathedral was constructed in a mere 40 years, although he did not live to see it, his work being completed by his ambitious successor, Bishop Ranulf Flambard. Although building continued into the 13th century, with the central tower rebuilt in the 15th, the interior of the cathedral we see today remains essentially Norman, a masterpiece of Romanesque architecture.

It’s the nave with its avenue of powerful columns, dogtooth arches and decorative zigzagging that remains long in the memory of visitors, but look upwards and you will see one of the most daring innovations of the time.

English cathedrals of this period were built with wooden roofs but Durham’s vault is stone, with ribs forming pointed arches to support it, giving the effect of soaring lightness. It was an engineering achievement that marked a turning point in church architecture.

The cathedral suffered during the Reformation as zealots defaced statues and destroyed altars and stained glass. The riches of St Cuthbert’s shrine were a prime target. In 1539 the commissioners who came to strip it of its treasure were amazed to discover that, just as the monks had always insisted, St Cuthbert’s body was still intact in his tomb.

Today the shrine’s simple grey stone, inscribed ‘Cuthbertus’, has an overhead canopy of vivid 20th-century colours and design. Depicting Christ as a young man, it is by the Scottish-born architect, Sir John Ninian Comper.

During the Civil War some 3,000 Scottish prisoners, captured by Oliver Cromwell, were held in the cathedral following the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. The conditions were appalling and all the woodwork in the great building was damaged or disappeared at this time. It’s likely it was burned as firewood by the prisoners, at least half of whom died during their captivity. A mass grave was discovered during construction work on Palace Green, near the cathedral, in 2013.