Status Updates From England's Cathedrals

‘After the Dissolution, Rochester was lucky to retain cathedral status, but the monastery disappeared and the monks dispersed. The buildings and the monks dispersed. The buildings were plundered for stone. The precinct is dotted with their ghostly remains, poking up in lawns, as outhouses or formal gardens.’

‘Peterborough lacks great monuments, but two Tudor queens are remembered in the sanctuary. One is the aforementioned Catherine of Aragon, granted dignity at last in death. She is the beneficiary still of an annual service of remembrance in the cathedral. Nearby is a memorial to another sad queen, Mary Queen of Scots. Her body rested here on its way from execution at Fotheringhay in 1587 to Westminster Abbey’

‘Liverpool’s Anglican cathedral loves superlatives. It is the biggest church in England. It has the world’s tallest tower and the longest footprint after St Peter’s in Rome. Only Seville cathedral outranks it in gothic volume. Begun in 1902 and not finished until 1978, this great building is medieval in appearance, gestation and extravagance.’

‘No cloister in England stands comparison with Gloucester, standard-bearer for the new Perpendicular. On a warm summer evening, the sun, filtered by coloured glass, floods its arcades. The roof is the first example in England of the half-cone vault, dating from the 1350s.’

‘Canterbury is the most visited English cathedral and therefore can be the most crowded. Yet its vastness can embrace all-comers. Just as its history straddled the Middle Ages from Conquest to Reformation, so its architecture covers the spectrum from Norman to Perpendicular. Canterbury is the story of the English cathedral, complete unto itself.’