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
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