Daily Archive

In a slightly spiteful note, I was driving down the A1 earlier this week, and I accidently cut off a rather large lorry. I felt bad, until I saw the sign on the side saying “Cambridge University Polo Team”. Heh, I cut off the Cambridge Polo Team.

Running behind, this is a week old, but we had a lovely afternoon last Sunday visiting Ely Cathedral. It’s really stunning. Driving up from Cambridge, the Cathedral can be seen rising above the fens 5 miles away (as seen on the cover of Pink Floyd’s Division Bell).

Most of the interesting history is available on wikipedia, but to highlight a couple of intersting points:
- The Lady Chapel was a 14th century addition and is the largest chapel attached to any British Cathedral, and is huge, bright and marvelous.

- Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monastaries combined with the zealous Bishop Thomas Goodrich led to a reasonable amount of damage to the interior of the Cathedral. Many of the faces on the historic sculptures were bashed/scratched off. Also all traces of the original shrine to Ethelreda (the 7th century founder of the site) were lost. (Note: I can’t find any online clarification that Bishop Goodrich was responsible for this, though I remember this from the information onsite, but take with a grain of salt)

- There is a bunch of wonderful stained glass in the cathedral. I particularly liked the RAF window, commemorating those who protected the skies above Ely during World War II.

One of many wonderful Gargoyles.

Heh. Keep off the Grass. Also, the Cathedral from the rear, Lady Chapel is on the right.

Finally, many of the other users of flickr have better pictures of the Cathedral. I particularly liked LawrenceOP’s photos. In particular, he has a wonderful collection of the stained glass photos, including an example of the RAF window.