Exeter Cathedral #3

Following from Exeter Cathedral #1 and #2, here's the final section of the roof tour I went on last week.

A final section of spiral staircase leads to the top of the north tower, with its extensive views of Exeter.

N corner of Cathedral Green

NE up new Princesshay development

E end of cathedral

SE to Exe estuary

E end of cathedral

looking E

South Tower

South Tower and view across to Haldon Hills

down to W end of Cathedral Green

summit of North Tower

detail of Princesshay and new John Lewis building

The tour ended with a long descent down the North Tower to emerge at its base by the astronomical clock.

If you enjoyed these images, see also The Spire, a three-part post of my photos of the tower tour of Salisbury Cathedral.

- Ray

Exeter Cathedral #2

Following on from Exeter Cathedral #1, we now move on to the roof tour (here's a ground plan for orientation).

The tour convenes at the western end of the nave, and normally goes up to roof level through a staircase there. Due to renovations, however, we instead went up a first spiral staircase leading from the Chapel of St John the Evangelist at the eastern end of the cathedral.

This takes you up to the level of the roof of the Lady Chapel, where you can see the flying buttresses on the north side ...

... the eastern elevation of the main building ...

... and the buttresses of the southern side, where the cathedral was struck by a bomb in the Blitz on 1942.

A return eastward and down a few steps takes you to an enclosed area called the retro-quire ...

... which has a scary little window ...

... giving a view westward down the nave of the cathedral.

From the retro-quire, then it's up another spiral staircase into the nave roof level. It was a bit dark for photography, and not vastly interesting; unlike Salisbury cathedral, it's internally-divided by fire partitions to reduce the insurance premiums, so its sheer length (covering the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world) is not visible.

Anyhow, you proceed westward along this until you reach the walkway that spans the gap between the north and south towers. You go left via the roofing lead workshop into the bell-ringing room of the south tower:

The belfry itself is apparently unsafe to access, but the tour goes instead up the north tower, which houses the single tolling bell, "Peter", and its timing mechanism. You re-cross the nave roof space and go up ...

... into the north tower to watch the mechanism trip and hear the bell ...

... then on up past the level housing "Peter", where again it was too dark to photograph with my pocket camera ...

... and out to the top of the tower.

Continued to the tower-top view in Exeter Cathedral #3.

- Ray

Exeter Cathedral #1

The week before last I was in town on various errands, and decided to visit Exeter Cathedral. I've been before, but not fully explored it; and further, I decided on impulse to go on the roof tour. First: a quick preamble at ground level. Click any image to enlarge.

Exeter Cathedral - north tower

Exeter Cathedral - nave

astronomical clock and old clock mechanism

chest with complex lock mechanism

Memorial to Rachel Charlotte O'Brien

I was rather touched by this memorial. Among the many conventional and pious inscriptions on the tombs of ecclesiastical fatcats, it was refreshing to see this honest commemoration of a young mother who died saving her child.

south aisle

nave - roof vaulting

detail of vaulting with bosses

boss level - detail of roof bosses

nave looking to north aisle

Further reading:
Exeter Cathedral: official site
Exeter Cathedral: Wikipedia
Exeter Cathedral Keystones & Carvings: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Sculptures & Their Polychromy. Extensive online resource with descriptions and high-resolution images.

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This scary cadaver tomb seemed a good excuse to repost a link to Henry Glassford Bell's 1832 anthology My Old Portfolio; or Tales and Sketches, which contains the highly pertinent story Dicky Cross, the idiot of Exeter, whose setting is Exeter Cathedral and its environs, during the reign of George III. Starting with the hoary old framing device of its being allegedly based on fact ...

"Should this volume be fortunate enough to find any readers in Exeter, they will doubtless perceive that the above story is by no means a mere fiction"

... it concerns a virtuous young woman who takes a short-cut through the cathedral at dusk, and finds she is locked in with a murderous idiot who lurks among the tombs. All ends happily.

I haven't been able to find the tomb described in the story:

There was one tomb nearly directly opposite to where Mary sat, on the other side of the chapel, well known to all the inhabitants of Exeter, by the remarkable recumbent figure which was carved upon it, and which no one ever passed without pausing to look at. The figure was that of a skeleton, very ingeniously executed, and grinning as if in silent mockery of all the vanities of life. A helmet with the vizor up, partially concealed the skull, and in the long bony hand was a broken lance. It was a vivid and painful representation of what the once powerful tenant of the sepulchre beneath then was, and of what all humanity must one day be.

Did I miss it, or is it fictional?

Continued in Exeter Cathedral #2

- Ray