Salisbury Cathedral (Cathedral Church Of The Blessed Virgin Mary) (Part Four).

Salisbury Cathedral.

Artist: John Constable.

Date: Circa 1825.

This File: 9 December 2014.

User: Tohma

(Wikimedia Commons)

Text from Wikipedia - the free encyclopædia,
unless stated otherwise.

The Font is cruciform in shape, and has a ten-foot-wide vessel filled to its brim with water, designed so that the water overflows in filaments through each corner into bronze gratings embedded in the Cathedral’s stone floor. 

The project cost £180,000 and was funded entirely by donations. Some parishioners reportedly objected to the new Font, considering it “change for change’s sake”, although Pye argued that the majority opinion was in favour: “I would say ninety per cent are in happy anticipation, five per cent are nervously expectant and five per cent are probably apoplectic”.[26]

The Chapter House is notable for its octagonal shape, slender Central Pillar and decorative Mediæval frieze. 

Salisbury Cathedral.

Available on YouTube

HERE

It was redecorated in 1855–1859 by William Burges. The frieze, which circles the Interior above the Stalls, depicts scenes and stories from the Books of Genesis and Exodus, including Adam and Eve, Noah, the Tower of Babel, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Chapter House displays the best-preserved of the four surviving original copies of Magna Carta.[27] This copy came to Salisbury because Elias of Dereham, who was present at Runnymede in 1215, was given the task of distributing some of the original copies. Elias later became a Canon of Salisbury and supervised the construction of the Cathedral.

The Salisbury Cathedral Clock, which dates from about 1386, is supposedly the oldest working modern Clock in the World.[28]

Mediæval Clock in Salisbury Cathedral. 

Dating from about 1386 and restored in 1956.

Photo: 22 September 2012.

Source: Own work.

Author: Rwendland

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Clock has no face; all Clocks of that date rang out the hours on a Bell. It was originally located in a Bell Tower that was demolished in 1792.

Following this demolition, the Clock was moved to the Cathedral Tower, where it was in operation until 1884. The Clock was then placed in storage and forgotten, until it was discovered in an attic of the Cathedral in 1928. It was repaired and restored to working order in 1956. In 2007, remedial work and repairs were carried out.[29]

The Cathedral is the subject of a famous painting by John Constable. As a gesture of appreciation for John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, who commissioned this painting, Constable included the Bishop and his wife in the canvas (at bottom left of picture (see, above)). The view depicted in the painting has changed very little in almost two centuries.

The Choir,

Salisbury Cathedral.

Photo: 8 July 2014.

Source: Own work.

Attribution: “Photo by DAVID ILIFF.

Licence: CC BY-SA 3.0”.

Author: Diliff

(Wikimedia Commons)

The Cathedral is apparently the inspiration for William Golding’s novel “The Spire”, in which the fictional Dean Jocelin makes the building of a Cathedral Spire his life’s work.

The construction of the Cathedral is an important plot point in Edward Rutherfurd’s historical novel “Sarum”, which explores the historical settlement of the Salisbury area.

The Cathedral has been mentioned[30] by the author Ken Follett as one of two models for the fictional Kingsbridge Cathedral in his historical novel “The Pillars of the Earth”.

PART FIVE FOLLOWS.