Last Tuesday morning David had to be in Leeds for a meeting, which required staying Monday night there. So I decided to take the opportunity to do my own "business trip" that I've long been planning, but with some difficulty given my current lack of a train station - a photographic tour of the cathedrals of Peterborough, Ely, and Lincoln. They are all grouped fairly close together on main train lines near the east coast, and are all on my "must-see" list before leaving England.
On Monday, we visited Peterborough and Ely together on our way up to Leeds. They are are both in Cambridgeshire, not that far north of Cambridge. It took us a little over two hours to drive from Oxford to Peterborough, and the countryside around there is really lovely.
Peterborough Cathedral
Peterborough Cathedral was a good one. Sadly, its most unique feature, the west front, was entirely covered in scaffolding. But this is what it normally looks like (courtesy of Adrian Fletcher over at Paradoxplace):
But we still got to see the rest of the exterior and the nice interior. Most of it dates from the 1200s and is in the Norman or Romanesque style.
One of the most interesting features inside was the ceiling, which was painted with designs and pictures in the 13th century. I've never seen a similar ceiling anywhere else.
The other interesting sight was the tomb of Catherine of Aragon, the unlucky first wife of King Henry VIII. After she failed to bear Henry a son (though she did have a daughter) and he became very interested in the childbearing hips of Anne Boleyn, he asked the Pope for permission to get a divorce. The pope refused, mainly because Catherine had powerful relatives in Spain. So Henry declared himself the head of the Church of England, got his divorce, and that was the beginning of the English Reformation.
The title above her tomb is "Katherine, Queen of England," which is rather touching because she was denied that title upon her death. She did have a daughter, as you probably know, who later became the queen known as "Bloody Mary."
More info and photos at Peterborough Cathedral on Sacred Destinations, and more photos here on Flickr.
We both agreed this cathedral was appropriately large, good and old, and with some interesting features, but neither of us was blown away. I began to fear that even I was becoming jaded from the privilege of visiting so many cathedrals. Fortunately, the next two took away that worry! They were both fantastic, and in quite different ways.
But first, our stomachs demanded we make time for lunch in Peterborough. The town center was right next to the cathedral and was historic and pleasant. In the center of it all was an old man preaching about salvation and the Last Days from a small wooden lectern, and his small audience included two young Mormon missionaries resting on a stone wall.
Market hall in Peterborough. The preacher is among the crowd to the right.
We had a very good lunch of toasted sandwiches and chips at a tea room not far from the market hall pictured above. It must have been geared to tourists, as the menu proclaimed it "A truly English experience." We didn't really agree - we thought it looked like Elmer's. But it was very tasty and the waitress was super nice, so we were very happy.
Ely Cathedral
Ely (rhymes with "freely") Cathedral was about an hour or so from Peterborough, in the exact opposite direction of Leeds. I felt terrible that David was going so far out of his way for me, but he said he didn't like the idea of me traveling alone all day and wanted to see the cathedrals too. What a guy!
Things went well from the moment we arrived in Ely. Places to park were scarce, and yet we found a free parking spot on the street almost right in front of the cathedral. We could hardly believe our luck - parking is one of the biggest headaches in our UK travels.
The next pleasant surprise was the approach to the cathedral, which was green and shady and very beautiful. This accounted for a lot of why we liked it so much.
The west front (above) has quite a unique appearance, primarily because the smaller tower that once stood on the left (to match the one on the right) fell down a few hundred years ago. It has never been rebuilt, leaving the cathedral with a rather lopsided look. I am a sucker for unique features, such as the crazy scissor arches at Wells Cathedral, and I like this one a lot as well.
We started by walking around the outside, where we got this nice view:
and met these silly characters:
When we went inside, we learned that a tour of the "octagon" was leaving in five minutes. Always happy for a good view on a sunny day, I went ahead and joined up (David opted out).
The octagon is an unusual central tower that has never been done anywhere else. It was built in the 1300s after the original Norman tower fell down (a lot of things have fallen down at Ely). It involved moving the pillars, strengthening them, and then constructing a structure made of 200 tons of English oak timbers decorated with stained glass and roofed with lead.
View of the octagon from outside.
View of the octagon from below.
A closer look.
The tour was seriously cool. All the stairs didn't even seem too bad, since they were in small sections.
First we emerged on the second level of the cathedral interior, where we had a nice view of the transept (cross-arm of the church).
Then the stairs got steeper and narrower as we climbed up farther...
On the way, we walked across the top of the bridge-like area that connects the Lady Chapel (left) with the east end of the cathedral (right).
And finally we entered the octagon itself, where the guide explained a bit about the physics of how the oak timbers (which are something like 800 years old) hold it all up.
The wooden panels pictured above are the backs of the angel paintings in the tower. These swung open like doors, allowing us to stick our heads out and peer straight down to the floor below. Talk about vertigo!
Our guide talking about the history from across the octagon.
And the magnificent, dizzying view to the floor below!
And even then, we weren't done climbing. Another short set of stairs brought us up above the wooden angels to the roof, where we stood outside the stained glass windows of the octagon and had more magnificent views.
The octagon and stone pinnacles on the roof.
View of Ely and the pretty landscape from the cathedral rooftop.
There's a complete photo gallery (215 pics) from Ely Cathedral now online at: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/england/ely-cathedral-pictures/
Leeds
From Ely it was another two hours or so to Leeds, which is a huge city. The very wide and well-lit cloverleaf freeways almost made it feel like we were in Los Angeles. But our sat nav guided us well to our hotel, where we arrived around 7:30pm.
We got to stay in the plush, company-paid Malmaison Leeds. It was as fabulous as we'd hoped, even though David said the room was smaller than the one he had last time. As usual, we did not want to leave, and it was a shame we didn't actually spend much time there.
Above is what we had for dinner - sandwiches via room service!
Lincoln Cathedral
Tuesday morning, I set off for the train station (handily only a couple blocks away) at 8:07 hoping to catch the 8:20 train, and just made it! My train ride went pretty quickly and smoothly. I started out on a huge Leeds-London train that had well over a dozen cars and was mostly filled with business commuters, then changed over to a tiny green choo-choo-er with only an engine and one car for the rest of the way to Lincoln.
Lincoln Cathedral is one of the biggest cathedrals and in England and universally considered one of the best, so I was quite excited to see it. It did not disappoint! As we pulled into the station at Lincoln, I was thrilled to get a surprise first glimpse of it across a lovely swan-filled river:
I had forgotten that it was perched so high on a hill, though, so it was a little overwhelming to think of the hike I had ahead of me. And it was quite a hike indeed. I had only limited time to spend in Lincoln before I had to be back in Leeds, so I went as fast as possible and was sure huffing and puffing when I finally reached the top about 15 minutes later!
It is not really clear in the above photo because of the tree, but the cathedral's facade is almost entirely obscured by a great stone gateway:
And so you can't really see the cathedral very well as you approach. Then you walk through the darkness of the gateway before emerging into the light and seeing this:
Even my wide-angle lens doesn't do this view justice. I was absolutely blown away! That facade is the hugest, most cliff-like thing I've ever seen in an ancient building. If you look at the size of the people in the above photo, you might be able to imagine what it's like when they look up at it. Just incredible.
That huge central portal is also very cool and quite unique. It is filled with fantastic carved sculptures in wondrous detail, and I was so sorry I had to leave before the sun fully swung around to the west to shine on it.
Inside, the highlights included:
Lincoln Cathedral stood in as Westminster Abbey during filming, and lots of monuments and murals were constructed to make it look the part. It was a pretty exciting event for the people of Lincoln and many of them even got to be extras in the movie. Some of the props have been left on display in the chapter house, along with some interesting posters about the whole experience. I learned that Audrey Tatou was always cold in the cathedral and that Tom Hanks promised his sons a game of cricket in Hyde Park one weekend. Fun stuff.
By this time I was so hungry I was actually starting to feel a little dizzy (photography is the only time I regard eating as inconvenient!), so I stopped in the cloister cafe for a quick lunch. In between bites I attempted to send a text message to David about my return plans. I don't know how some people text as fast as they do. Practice, I'm sure, but I find it so tedious.
Then I headed back outside and over to Lincoln Castle to climb the observatory tower for photos of the cathedral. This was actually my second time doing this (the first was while waiting for graduation to finish), but I was hoping the light would be a bit better by now since it was approaching 1:30.
I had waited until the absolute last minute in the hopes of getting the best light on the west front, so then I had to really hustle back down the hill to the station for the 2:04 train back to Leeds. Boy were my legs like jelly by then! Thankfully I made it, and even had three minutes to buy a water and magazines before boarding. Also got to talk to David briefly as he was on a break from his meetings, which was nice.
I had a pleasant ride to Newark where I had to change trains, but then the fun ended. I took about 30 seconds to find my connecting train's platform on the departures screen, then as I was crossing the footbridge over the tracks, I heard the whistle for my train! I sprinted down the stairs and just as I reached it and still held out hope for hopping on, it pulled away.
I was so disappointed, especially because it meant I woul