On Tuesday, the 4th, we made a day-long visit to Canterbury. We were there 3 years ago when we visited England with Abby and going back on this trip was high on our list of priorities. Why, you might ask, go back to this particular cathedral? You were there just a short time ago and once you’ve seen a cathedral, what can you learn from a second visit?
For us, the answer is that we saw so much on our first visit that we realized that there was much more to see and learn. As usual, our pictures can’t really show the vast spaces inside or the imposing external structures properly, but they may give you some sense of what we experienced. On this visit, we signed up for a guided tour and we were fortunate—again—to have an enthusiastic, knowledgeable person to tell us not only about the big things, but also the small things that we would have never noticed on our own.
We took an early train to Canterbury on the high-speed line. We were there in 50 minutes, which is about twice as fast as we got there in 2022.
I’m not going to try to recount the history or describe the architecture since I would be writing all day and I’d probably get most of it wrong. Instead, you can get good information from this Wikipedia article. The original church at this location dates back to 597 CE, but the much larger construction is from around 1070 and it replaced the Saxon version with a much larger Norman-style church. [It may only be a coincidence, but I find it suspicious that the Saxon church was destroyed by fire only 4 years after the Norman conquest in 1066, allowing a new church to be built.] After the killing of Thomas Becket in 1170, there was a large construction project funded by revenue from pilgrims visiting St. Thomas Becket’s shrine. The cathedral took its final overall form in the late 1300s.
What our guide, Philippa, did for us was help visualize how the changes came about. For example, she explained that the major expansion after Becket’s death was intended to be a second level rising from the nave and extending eastward, but as the foundations were being dug, the workers were in mud and water up to their waists because the water table was so high. That necessitated adding a third level, which is how it remains today. The crypt, which is usually below ground in churches, is at ground level here, although when we were in the crypt it felt like we were underground.
When we walked around by ourselves on our last visit, we found what we thought was the place where Becket was killed. That murder was of enormous importance in England, and to the Catholic church. There were reportedly many miracles associated with Becket after his death. [Don’t ask me. Talk to a theologian.] So, a large shrine was created where people could come to honor Becket and, incidentally, leave offerings of valuables. What we saw on our first visit was the location of the shrine—which was destroyed when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1538—but Philippa took us to an obscure space at what would have been the east end of the church in 1170 and describe the space as it would have been at the time of the murder. We would have walked right past it if she had not given us the background.
Given how old the cathedral is, it is not surprising that there is stained glass from many periods in the church. Philippa told us about several of window. For example, she told us about the “story” windows which lined the north wall along which the pilgrims queued when visiting the shrine. The stories show how miracles cured various afflictions. She asked if we could guess what the “green box” we saw in most of the scenes was and I suggested it was a donation box. She said that it was used as a not-so-subtle reminder to the pilgrims that they should contribute if they expected a miracle.
Those were old windows from the 1200s. She also showed us new windows created in the 1950s. They were created to replace windows destroyed by the Germans in the Second World War. Canterbury was what I would call a terror target because it had no military value at all. [She was pretty indignant about this.] One window, called the “Salvation” window, is on the south side of the cathedral and was absolutely glowing with color when we saw it. It has several symbolic elements relating to freeing prisoners from concentration camps. Despite the terrible events it alludes to, the window projects an atmosphere of hope. I think that was partially because the sun was lighting up the entire window.
What we did not know when we arrived at the Cathedral was that something called “school days” was happening. More than 300 6th formers (last year of primary school) were there to learn about stained glass, masonry work, medieval music and other arts and crafts. Apparently, most people who know about school days stay away at that time because—how can I say this politely—300 kids can make a LOT of noise. We were also advised to be careful not to include children or the activities in our photos and videos.
While we were back down in the crypt after our tour, we stopped near a memorial and were looking at the colors and reading about the person it memorialized when a lay deacon, dressed like a monk, must have realized we were truly interested and came over and pointed out features we had missed. For example, this memorial was in place in the 1500s when all decorations in churches were being destroyed. In this case, the deacon pointed out that all the statues of saints around the memorial had had their heads roughly removed with a single exception: St. Christopher, patron saint of journeys, was left untouched. We had completely missed that.
I could go on mentioning things like the sophisticated water supply based on aqueducts left by the Romans or how politically important the Cathedral has been for nearly a thousand years, but the overall feeling I am trying to convey is that we learned a great deal from the guide and others and we put some of what we learned to use in wandering around on our own. It was a special experience.
We also had fun wandering around the streets of Canterbury. It seemed more commercial to me than on our last visit, but the streets were still lined with old buildings and there were views of the cathedral from many locations.
Since we took an early train, we had time to have a small breakfast before our tour. We had been bemoaning the quality of the coffee in Ireland and England (weak) but the coffee at Côte Canterbury was good. Before we headed back to London, we ate at Café des Amis, where we had eaten when we visited with Abby. The train ride back was just what we wanted: uneventful.
It was a long but enjoyable day.
I posted 20+ pictures on the Canterbury pictures page.