Peterborough Cathedral is one particular of England’s greatest buildings, an almost complete Romanesque church on an spectacular scale sitting down powering one particular of the most unique and eccentric Gothic facades identified any place in medieval Europe. The church we see right now is tiny altered since its completion in the 13th century aside from inescapable 19th century restorations and the really serious depradations of Civil War problems in the mid 17th century.
The bulk of the church is 12th century Norman, retaining even its apse (a rarity in England) and even the unique flat wooden ceilings of nave and transept. The nave ceiling retains its early medieval painted decoration with an assortment of figures set inside lozenge formed panels (mainly overpainted in the 18th and 19th hundreds of years but the all round result is preserved). The 13th century west facade is the most dramatic and unforgettable characteristic of the constructing, with 3 broad Gothic arches forming a large porch in front of the making, a exceptional style and design, flanked by compact spires and intended to be surmounted by two pinnacled towers soaring just driving the facade, even though only that on the north facet was completed (and originally surmounted by a wood spire which was taken off c1800). The central tower is a incredibly squat composition of 14th century day (with a placing vaulted ceiling within just) and alongside with its counterpart at the west end would make surprisingly small existence on the city’s skyline for this sort of an huge setting up. The closing addition to the church prior to the Reformation is the ambulatory around the apse, a superb example of late medieval perpendicular with a gorgeous supporter-vaulted ceiling.
Provided the large scale of the setting up it is perhaps astonishing to understand that it has only had cathedral status considering that 1541, prior to that it experienced been basically Peterborough Abbey, but it was a single of the most nicely endowed monastic properties in the nation, as witnessed by the architecture. It was once the burial location of two queens, Katherine of Aragon lies on the north aspect of the choir and Mary Queen of Scots was initially interred right here before her son James I had her entire body moved to the much more prestigious surroundings of Westminster.
Unfortunately the cathedral suffered miserably through the Civil War when Parliamentarian troops ransacked the church and former monastic properties in an orgy of destruction, a great deal of which was overseen by Cromwell himself in particular person (which allows demonstrate its thoroughness). Tombs and monuments were brutally defaced, and approximately all the primary furnishings and woodwork were being wrecked, together with each little bit of stained glass in all the wide windows (only the merest fragments keep on being right now in the higher home windows of the apse). Worse nevertheless, the delightful cloisters on the south side, after famed for the magnificence of their painted windows, have been demolished leaving only their outer walls and some tantalising reminders of their former richness. The spectacular 13th century Lady Chapel attached to the north transept (an uncommon arrangement, identical to that at Ely) was a different significant casualty, demolished promptly soon after the war so that its materials could be offered in get to increase resources for the restoration of the cathedral subsequent the Cromwellian rampage.
In the following hundreds of years a lot was accomplished to repair service the building and convey it back again into buy. There have been major restorations through the 19th century, which included the dismantling and rebuilding of the central tower (following the identical design and reusing original material) owing to impending structural failure in the crossing piers.
What we see today is consequently a marvel of architecture, a church of terrific elegance, but a somewhat hollow one owing to the misfortunes of record. A single thus will not find at Peterborough the same litter of the centuries that other cathedrals frequently have (in terms of tombs and furnishings) and there are few windows of genuine be aware, but for the grandeur of its architecture it is a person of the incredibly very best church buildings we have.
For more background see the link beneath:-
www.peterborough-cathedral.org.uk/background.aspx
Posted by Aidan McRae Thomson on 2017-06-15 19:06:07
Tagged: , Peterborough , Cathedral , Cambridgeshire
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