The Cathedral of Peterborough

Today I went to the city of Peterborough.  The old part of town is dominated by the cathedral with its mammoth, tripartite porch.  There was originally a monastery of Benedictine monks attached to the cathedral, and you can walk through the remains of their abbey in the adjoining streets.  Local businesses and church offices have built onto the ruins here and there--how would you like to work in an office standing in the abbey's old dining room?  You can still walk through the old cloister and imagine centuries of monks going silently to the cathedral to recite the prayer services throughout the day and night.

Here is a detail of the top of the gable over the porch.  The features on the statues have been worn away over the centuries.

An old graveyard surrounds the cathedral with thin stone tomb stones blurred with green lichen and too many rain storms.  You can hardly read the inscriptions.  It was freezing cold, and I think my hands must have gotten third-degree frostbite taking pictures.

Irish cross, green with lichen, in the cemetery.

I could only take pictures inside the church if I paid for a photography pass.  I decided to cough up the two-pound fee, and to get my money's worth I took so many pictures that the battery on my camera ran out!  I will include a few of them.  Here is the interior.  The wooden ceiling was painted int the thirteenth century, and it is really incredible--quite unusual, too.

This is a view of the wooden ceiling over the nave and in the heavy, square crossing tower.

Oliver Cromwell, the tyrannical puritan Protector of the English realm during the mid seventeenth century, wrought havoc on church images.  Think of all the statues, windows, and reliquaries he smashed!  He wasn't as bad as the French Revolution, but still pretty awful.  Only two small stained glass windows in the whole cathedral survived the Cromwell campaign.  There are many Victorian windows, but most of the cathedral now has clear glass.  As a result, the white light pours into the nave, illuminating the side aisles.

Brightly lit side aisles.  Medieval visitors to the church would use these side aisles to walk to the back of the sanctuary and visit the assortment of chapels without disturbing the service in the center of the cathedral.

Victorian artisans carved the ornate choir stalls.

Wooden saints look out from niches above some of the more important seats.

My sister and I went to the formal dinner served to graduate students every night in the college dining hall.  We had to wear the "Harry Potter" robes for the occasion, and I borrowed some from one of her friends.  I felt a little like a country bumpkin at the candlelit dinner with paintings of various academic luminaries lining the walls of the dining room--you see, I had forgotten to bring a tie, and I didn't have a suit coat.  I have a big American accent, and I can't do the English thing where you hold your knife with your right hand and try to use your fork with you left.  Furthermore, I kept making comments to my sister about how everything reminded me of Harry Potter.  Not only the robes, but the tables were set up just like the Hogwarts dining hall, the professors sat in the front, and everything was dim and lit with candles.  We all rose when the gong rang, and the professors recited the prayer in Latin.  I half expected Dumbledore to arrive and snap his fingers to make the food appear!  We had beet salad with feta cheese and arugula greens, duck leg in fruit sauce, mashed potatoes, vegetables, fresh-pressed Cambridge apple cider, lemon tart with chantilly cream, and more cheese, fruit, and chocolate mints for dessert.  There was no pumpkin juice!

 Pretty fabulous sleeves on these robes!