English Churches and Cathedrals Index

Welcome to this series of articles about religious buildings in England and the UK. These include Churches, Abbeys, Priories, Cathedrals, Basilicas, Duomos, Chapels, Mosques, in fact anything that is relevant to any religion or belief system.

A separate index will cover sites in Europe and the rest of the world whilst any prehistoric sites which may be wholly or partly religious in nature (e.g. Stonehenge) will fall under the relevant Curiosities Index. Sites here are listed in order of the alphabetical name of the town or city in which the site is to be found.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.

St Senara, Zennor, Cornwall

Zennor is a lovely little village down in the Lands End peninsula of Cornwall. You wouldn't stumble across it by accident I suspect, but a few times I have gone to visit this church and look around the small museum.

This is the only church in the land - nay the world - to be dedicated to St Senara. As with many of the very early Cornish saints (the first church on this site to be dedicated to her is said to have been 6th century) there are several versions of the saint's story, some more fantastic than others.

In one version she plays the part of a Irish princess, a cross between Perseus's mother, Danae and Snow White - for her father the king orders his pregnant daughter killed. The knight thus ordered, cannot bring himself to do the deed and instead (this is better???) persuades her to get into a barrel, nails down the lid and rolls it off a cliff into the sea. She ends up at Cornwall, at this church and falls in love with a chorister who loves her in return. In other versions she is born a mermaid. Well look... it was a long time ago, ok? The details get muddied in time...

The church of course does have another (or perhaps the same...) mermaid story. This version tells of a chorister called Matthew Trewella, 600 years ago, whose voice was so pure that he sang the closing hymn to services as a solo. A mermaid heard his singing and came to the church (presumably somewhat in the manner of a sea lion but without the ball balanced on her nose) to entice him back into the sea as her husband. "Crikey! You'll do for me!" he said with relish, looking at her vital statistics of 36, 24, £1.20 per pound... He vanished with her beneath the waves and it is said that on a still night after seventeen pints you can still hear him drowning singing from beneath the waves.

A piscina. These small bowls can often be found in the aisle of churches. They were used for washing the communion vessels.

There are two fonts here. The one that the Normans used was found buried in the garden of the vicarage and was set up in the church once again in 1960. The one in use though is this one, a mere stripling of modernity, dating from the 1200s or 1300s.

From the fourteenth century is this ancient carving of a mermaid on a bench end. Is it St Senara, or did this carving prompt the legend of the mermaid who came to woo the unfortunate Matthew Trewhella? Arthur Mee in the Cornwall entry to his King's England series of guide books, says that the Puritans are to blame for the obliterating of her face and bare breasts. The face certainly bears signs of violence, the breasts less so. I wonder how much of them were left by the time of the Puritans, after 300+ years of furtive fondling by the village's teenaged boys - who after all had no juke boxes, fruit machines or phone signal...

A photograph from an earlier visit, this one taken on film rather than digitally.

Return to English Churches and Cathedrals Index

European Churches and Cathedrals

Welcome to this series of articles about religious buildings outside the UK. These include Churches, Abbeys, Priories, Cathedrals, Basilicas, Duomos, Chapels, Mosques, in fact anything that is relevant to any religion or belief system.

A separate index will cover sites in England and the rest of the UK and any prehistoric sites which may be wholly or partly religious in nature (e.g. Stonehenge) will fall under the relevant Curiosities Index. Sites here are listed in order of the alphabetical name of the town or city in which the site is to be found.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to each of the articles. A link on each page will bring you back here.

Whilst not in Europe, there are a few articles from our 2013 Cruise in the Holy Land which may be of interest.

Messina Duomo Basilica

In September 2014 we were on a cruise, taking in various ports in and near Italy. This day we docked in Messina, Sicily and as part of a sight-seeing excursion we visited the Duomo or basilica of Messina.

In particular the visit was timed to end at the basilica and we were dropped off in the square in good time to watch the animated clock tower performance at twelve noon. The ship had been intending to leave at twelve thirty which would have meant missing this, but they extended the "all aboard" deadline to allow tours and independent passengers to see the clock.

It was built by the Normans, those descendants of the Norsemen who hadn't quite done with wanting to spread out from Scandinavia searching for warmer places to spend winter in. The church was consecrated in 1197, the King and Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI and his Queen Constance I of Sicily being on hand to witness the ceremony be performed by Archbishop Barardo.

We had time before the show to have a quick look inside the cathedral. It contains the 13th century tomb of Conrad IV, a king of Germany and Sicily, but repeated earthquakes (the last in 1908) and the bombing of WWII means most of the church is reconstructed.

The campanile or clock tower has several interesting features. On the side facing the basilica are two clock faces: the lower one is a perpetual calendar with a rotating outer ring showing the day and month, with a marble statue of an angel, just discernable on the left side of the dial on the photo, pointing out the day, whilst moveable panels within the ring ensure that the moveable feasts such as Easter are always correctly shown. Underneath the central star-pointed sun a panel shows the currrent year. The top dial is a planetarium and shows the nine planets geared and spaced in true scale to rotate around the central sun, whilst the astological signs of the Zodiac show which sign each planet is within.

On the side of the tower facing the square are animated displays. At twelve noon the souvenir sellers stop their incessant peddling of their tea towels, magnets, wooden fold-up fruit bowls etc. and the clock chimes the hour. Following this, the lion in the top window waves his flag, wags his tail and tilts his head back to roar. And it really does give a very realistic and loud roar!

Then the giant cockerel flaps his wings and crows whilst two legendary defenders of Messina ring the bells at either side of the cockeral. Just below an angel hands a letter to Messina's patron saint the Madonna of the letters whilst the figures of St Paul and ambassadors of Messina pass before her and bow. In the next window a different biblical scene is shown during each quarter of the year. As the loudspeakers play the Ave Maria, the next window comes to life. A golden church, representing the Sanctuary of the Madonna at Montalto, appears rising from behind a cloud as a dove flies in circles overhead; robed figures turn and bow to a throne as they pass before it. In the bottom window a different classical figure (Apollo, Mars, Diana etc.) appears, a different figure each day of the week, each driving a chariot pulled by a different animal. I totally missed any movement in some of the windows, perhaps they move too slow given the short time we were there.

No matter how clever and intricate something is, these days it generally has to be judged against the latest Hollywood CGI and, against such wonders, the clock seems to be very slow and intermittent. Feedback and ratings on websites seem to show mixed reception. In 1933 when it was first installed, it must have knocked everyone's socks off. Even today, the first time the lion's head is thrown back and the loud roar comes from the tower, it is a brilliant moment.

At the end of the show, a few people clapped, a few cheered, the tour guides waved impatient flags, the peddlers pounced and the independent travellers from the ship shot off to dash down the hill and onto the ship before it sailed!

Return to European Churches and Cathedrals Index Page

Florence Duomo

Florence is an Italian city full of works of art. Michaelangelo's statue of David is just one of many statues to be seen here, though the original is now indoors in a museum whilst a replica stands outside. The city's cathedral or basilica is Il Duomo Officially, the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore (...of Saint Mary of the Flowers).

This is the impressive facade of Il Duomo. It has one of the most impressive domes of the medieval world. A church was first consecrated here by St Ambrose of Milan in the year 393 CE. This ancient structure, added to, damaged and repaired no doubt several times, needed replacing entirely by the late 1200s. Building commenced on September 9 1296 and was to last another 170 years, interrupted or set back at times by earthquakes, various project managers growing old and dying and a small matter called the Black Death in 1348.

The facade is relatively new. Almost all of Florence seems to be constructed of white, green and red marble and the present facade was added only in 1876/87.

The original facade had never been finished, never having gotten above the lower portion of the basilica and by the Renaissance was very old-fashioned in appearance. It was pulled down in 1587-88 and the front of the basilica remained bare for the next 300 years.

Some say it is excessively decorated. We just thought it was excessively dirty. It was in dire need of a good wash and brush up.

The guide took an incredible 3/4 hours to tell us all this, adding many names and dates that meant absolutely nothing to me and, to judge from the intense boredom on the face of our fellow travellers, to no one else either. If you were a scholar of Italian artists and architects it may have been interesting...

We were, however, stuck in the queue to go in! Whilst outside we caught a glimpse of the dome. This is on an octagonal supporting tower and was an architectural marvel for its time. The laws of Florence forbade the use of any external buttresses simply because their enemies in central Italy used them as an architectural tool. A bit like an army refusing to use guns because that's what their enemy was using... Instead it had to be supported from the inside with an eight-sided rail of concrete with a chain embedded. At least that was the idea - magnetic examination has failed to find any evidence of the chain. Either it doesn't exist or it is buried very deep within the concrete.

Once inside we could see up into the interior of the dome. The figures were painted elongated so that they appear in the correct perspective when viewed from below. It doesn't look that big from below but it's a long way up to it! In fact the painting covers a massive 3600 square metres and took 11 years to complete. The original artist Giorgio Vasari started in 1568 and then selfishly died in 1574, leaving Federico Zuccari and a few friends to finish it off.

Return to European Churches and Cathedrals Index Page