Gloucester Cathedral - ancient and magnificent

   Gloucester Cathedral soars magnificently into the heavens and is perfectly proportioned to my eyes. It is one of 5 cathedrals founded by Henry VIII from some of the monastic churches that he had disendowed. Before that rebirth in 1541, it had a long history dating from its ancestor, a religious house dedicated to St. Peter. This owed its inception in 678-9 to King Ethelred of Mercia who assigned to Osric, a prince in the province of Hwicce, an area of land for the purpose. Benedictine monks were installed there in the early 11th century by Bishop Wulfstan of Worcester but nothing remains of this Anglo-Saxon monastery, in which the men slept, worked, ate and died, being buried in the cemetery in the South East of the church. Pilgrims were admitted for devotions which included kneeling at the tomb of King Edward II.
   The Norman period.
   In 1072, when there were only 2 monks and 8 novices, William the Conqueror appointed a Norman monk as Abbot of Gloucester. His name was Serlo and I imagine him as sturdy, inspiring and not a little bossy as he was responsible for invigorating and expanding the community as well as organising the building of the eastern part starting in 1089 with the nave, the crypt, its apse, its encircling ambulatory, its chapels and the choir above it. This section was dedicated on 15th July, 1100. Then he organised the building for the monks before dying in 1104. There was a serious fire in 1122 but the work on the nave was completed in about 1160. Further additions were made but the body of the building is largely Norman and its plan is excellent for allowing circulation between its various parts.
    Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and this one was changed into a house of secular clergy who lived as ordinary priests, not as monks. The old Latin services were replaced with the English Prayer book which meant that worshippers could understand what was happening - and I sometimes wonder if the minor clergy were not similarly aided in comprehension.
   The nave has pillars 30 ft 7 inches high to the eye but are even taller since the present pavement was raised in 1740 by several inches. The glass is mostly modern. The South Transept is reputedly the birthplace of Perpendicular architecture as, in about 1330,  the Gloucester builders placed straight up-and-down tracery over the old Norman work. The tower rises above the choir to the height of 225 feet.

The East window, assembled during the 1350's, has the largest area of any cathedral window in Britain and was in essence a war memorial commemorating the deeds of barons at Crécy (1346) and Calais (1347). It is not flat but has bayed wings.

The Cloister is famous for the fan vaulting on its walls and this is where the monks worked, taught, walked and meditated. Unusually it lies to the North and so these men had a cold time of it. There is a lavatorium or washing place and there were 20 carrels or study closets along the walls. (I was interested to find this lovely word still in use in libraries in the U.S.A.) The chapels are fascinating also and the large bell, Great Peter, is the only Medieval Bourdon bell remaining in England and weighs in at a hefty 59 cwt plus, ringing out over the city marking the daylight hours.
The Effigies. I am always on the look-out for the Welsh connection when I go abroad and sought out the tomb of the eldest son of William the Conqueror, Robert Curthose, made from Irish bog oak a century after his death in Cardiff Castle in 1134, where he had been imprisoned by his younger brother, Henry I. More magnificent is the tomb of Edward II who was brutally murdered in Berkeley Castle in September 1327, but the reasons and the supposed method are not mentioned in any of the discreet guide-books I have read. The effigy is made of alabaster and rests on a tomb chest of oolitic limestone clad in Purbeck marble.

Of the many famous people and events connected with the cathedral, I warm to the story of the hasty coronation in 1216 of the boy King Henry III using, according to legend, his mother's bracelet.

After this I enjoyed my CAKE in the café garden and then I wandered outside, gazing again at the tower, realising that part of its stunning effect derives from the presence of smaller towers around it, imitating its proportions. The doorway is splendid.

With a couple of hours to spare before my train to Newport to take me home on a Monmouthshire bus, I had a look at the city and was underwhelmed to find it largely a chain-store shopping mall. Hoping that Gloucester Quays might be more atmospheric I took a bus down there to find another soulless mall dedicated to designer outlet retail therapy. I can be a keen devotee of purchase power and snapped up a bargain but it does seem a great pity that our cities and towns are now so much alike and lack any individuality or connection with their richly textured history. Sad.

I am indebted to 3 guides for my research: one written by the then Dean, Dr. Henry Gee who died in 1938; the Pitkin Guide and one by David Verey and David Welander. Opening hours and other information may be checked by clicking here and my articles on Cardiff Castle and Berkeley Castle might be of interest to you also. I do hope so. All readers are allowed a large piece of CAKE after a visit either to a historic site or to my blog! A visit to Hereford Cathedral and Mappa Mundi is very worthwhile.

Warwick Castle: imposing with a long history

Warwick Castle has a dominating position on a cliff which has been eroded by the Avon: Sir Walter Scott, who saw it before the fire of 1871, described it as the "fairest monument of ancient and chivalrous splendour which remains uninjured by time." In fact, during its long history it has been extensively remodelled, fallen into disrepair and been renovated again and again: time and man have injured it and so - metaphorically - have the present owners who allow a burger tent in the bailey and loud music to distract from the grandeur.
  When I first entered, I was struck by something odd in its proportions and attributed this to the delicate fairy-tale buildings on top of the motte but later discovered another reason during the excellent guided tour. Read on!

Motte, bailey and towers.
    The mound you see is called Ethelfleda's motte after the doughty daughter of Alfred the Great, who founded a burh here in 916 to help defend Mercia from the attacking Danes, but it is Norman, not Anglo-Saxon. She was aided by a legendary Saxon earl named Guy who resolutely fought dragons and rescued distressed maidens and then married the daughter of Rohand, the first true Earl of Warwick.
   In 1068 William the Conqueror made Henry de Newburgh an earl and he enlarged the mound and constructed a Norman motte and bailey fortification which was later rebuilt in stone to replace the timber. The open space is now dominated by Caesar's Tower (also called Poitiers Tower) and Guy's Tower (probably not after the monster-slayer, unfortunately), the work of the Beauchamps, father and son, both called Thomas.  Caesar's Tower has an oubliette (thrillingly horrible thought!), the walls of Guy's are 10 feet thick and they are masterpieces of 14th century military architecture. Both were probably inspired by French models and are machicolated. Other towers, Bear and Clarence, each with its own well and ovens, were instigated by Richard III and unfinished at his death in 1485.

The State Rooms
    Warwick Castle has several splendidly huge chambers including the The State Dining Room, The Great Hall, (62 x 45 ft and 40 feet high)  The Red Drawing Room, The Cedar Drawing Room, The Green Drawing Room and others. There are paintings in most of these by famous artists such as Raphael, Van Dyck, Rubens and the castle is worth visiting for these alone. The armour in The Great Hall is considered by some to be second only to that in the Tower of London and includes a touchingly small suit said to have been made for "the Noble Impe", the young son of Robert Dudley, who died in early childhood. Here you can also goggle at "Guy's Porage Pot", made in the 14th century as a garrison cooking utensil, apparently holding 136 gallons which is reputed to have been refilled 4 times with punch at a coming-of-age party. There is also a massive Beauvais tapestry showing Marlborough's army on the march and the famous picture of Queen Elizabeth I in her coronation robes. In the Cedar Room is a fireplace made by the Adam brothers in Carrara marble with the symbols of life and death, the egg and the arrow, as well as an Aubusson carpet with the Warwick bear and staff in each corner and the Greville swan on the centre edge. I normally prefer the exterior of a castle to sumptuous domestic rooms but there is no burger tent in here and I found the waxworks, which might have been naff, quite appealing.

Other famous connections

   Piers Gaveston, as we all learned in school, was the "favourite" of King Edward II and my shy history teacher never explained what that might have meant - I am also of modest disposition and will not illuminate the matter further. He flaunted himself and grew in power, was exiled but returned, until his presence became unsupportable: he nicknamed Guy, Earl of Warwick "the Black Hound of Arden" but Guy retorted that "one day the hound will bite him." Gaveston was tried in The Great Hall for stealing royal treasure by a committee of the Barons, was sentenced to death and beheaded by 2 Welshmen on 19th June 1312 on nearby Blacklow Hill. 

   I also emerged from my "O" level (shows how old I am!) history course having heard of Warwick the Kingmaker (22 November 1428 - 14th April 1471) but was unsure why he was so-called. Shakespeare said that  Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, was "the proud setter up and puller down of kings" and he was a powerful leader in the Wars of the Roses, originally Yorkist but then switching to the Lancastrian side.  He was by far the richest nobleman of the 1460's with a splendid household, retinue, fleet of ships and train of artillery. Thwarting the Duke of York's usurpation in 1460, he engineered the accession of Edward IV the following year and, falling out of favour, later restored Henry VI to the throne. 

   "Capability" Brown was employed in 1753 to beautify the courtyard and may have also helped landscape the gardens. I now regard him as a castle vandal since he destroyed ancient walls and Medieval buildings in the bailey at Cardiff Castle and here he did something even odder, as our guide explained. Thinking that the walls and towers were unduly looming and forbidding (that is the purpose of such items in my opinion) he was told that the cost of remodelling them was prohibitive and so he had the ground level raised ten feet. This was an immense undertaking and is the reason why the courtyard looks slightly disproportionate and why some of the windows (to the left of the entrance to the State Rooms) are half basement. 

My Trip Advisor Hat

    Take the family and enjoy all the attractions but please do NOT patronise the burger tent and encourage further monstrosities. Listen to one of the excellent history team on a tour and engage with all the fun things outside such as the Horrible Histories Maze, the Birds of Prey Arena and Mews, the peacocks, the Mighty Trebuchet (largest working model in the world) and The Castle Dungeon. There is plenty to do and I quite see why the owners need to attract visitors to pay for the ongoing building works but wish they would keep any modernity outside the walls. That's all - and toot if you agree. Then visit nearby Kenilworth, ruined, wild and magnificent. I shall write about that soon. Yes - you are right in thinking I didn't do all this on Monmouthshire buses but I managed on public transport which is the main thing! Yet my New Year's resolution is never to go through huge Birmingham New Street Station again although I loved little old Moor Street Station.

For opening times etc click here. For my article on Cardiff Castle click here. Another early fort founded on instructions of William the Conqueror is Chepstow Castle which is possibly even more forbidding but then, it was built to deal with the Welsh!