Berchtesgaden

Monday 14 August 2000. We are startled awake on the first morning of our stay in Austria. Is it an avalanche? Is it the jangle of cowbells from the cattle on the hills? Is it the yodelling of a herdsman high on the hills above Schüttdorf?

No... it's the church bells of this church directly opposite our window! It started at 6:00am with four bongs for the hour then six bongs for the time then every 15 minutes, a bong for each quarter hour, i.e. one bong at quarter past the hour, two bongs at half past and three bongs at quarter to the hour. Hence the four bongs at six o'clock denoting the hour had been reached then another six bongs for six o'clock. At 7:00am the bell ringer took out all of his frustrations on yet another bell... After four for the hour and seven for the time, he rang out three sets of twenty bongs presumably to call people for morning prayer. There was a bit of moaning at breakfast from some sleepy tourists, though I always take the view that if you travel in foreign climes you don't start off by complaining about their traditions.

This was our hotel: the Pinzgauhof in Shüttdorff. I learned another important fact to bear in mind when using a back-to-front toilet (see first article in this series). Gentlemen with dangly bits should stand before flushing as the jet of water slides everything behind you forwards. A collision can be traumatic...

Ok, first excursion time. It took a while to find the coach - Driver John told us to look for and go down an alley. He must have had a different definition of an alley to me! They must be a lot bigger in Kent and Essex to Lancashire... The coach had brought holidaymakers on two trips. The other was a walking holiday so the coach had a few spare seats! We allowed ourselves to spread out a bit.

First stop was Berchtesgaden for which we crossed back into Germany - Bavaria. We hadn't brought any German money out with us (this was before the Euro came in), not realising that we were going to be leaving Austria but in the event it didn't matter as we shall see.

From here you could take an optional extra trip to see Hitler's wartime bunker which is nearby - just about where the von Trapps would have been arrested had they really attempted to walk over the mountains as depicted in The Sound of Music. We opted to look around the town. Wartime coal storage bins hold no interest for me...

Picturesque views were on all sides! Each house or hotel had its own colour scheme for the flowers and we seldom saw two the same next to each other. We saw many roadside shrines and some buildings also had saintly figures cast in relief on walls or corners or over porches.

Fran and I on the hill overlooking the lower part of the town and with a splendid backdrop of mountains. It was now getting towards lunch!

We went into a cafe and, apologising for my terrible German, I asked if Austrian schillings were acceptable. I was pleased when without even a flinch the proprietess answered back in German that they were. She turned out to speak excellent English, as did her staff. So, as she had answered me in German, I presumed I must have got it right!

We had a light snack then went berserk and undid all the good dietary self-denial with a slice of apfel strudel with ice cream. Iss gute... iss fielen gute!

Then feeling suitably guilty we had an urge to walk it off! We had another quick turn around the town and then decided that we had enough time to venture a bit further.

As the coach had come into the town earlier, the road went alongside one of the wonderfully clear pastel blue-green rivers. The river had passed under a covered bridge - just about unknown in England - and I fancied a photo of it. The hill was steeper and longer than I had thought! However, we made it down to the bottom and just look at the colour of that wonderfully pure meltwater from high in the Alps. Then back up to the coach in time where we fondly imagined - wrongly - that we had made up for the apple strudel...

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Salisbury Cathedral

Salisbury is one of England's most famous cathedrals. Building commenced in 1220 - late for an English cathedral, but we must remember that Salisbury grew only once the old hillfort city of Old Sarum was abandoned. The Norman cathedral at Old Sarum was built from 1075-1092.

The famous spire is England's tallest at 404 feet or 123 metres and leans around 27 inches from the vertical.

This is the oldest working clock in Europe. It was made in 1386 and originally installed in a bell tower that was demolished in 1798. It is still ticking away and the cathedral website informs us (and I love this!) that it has ticked more than 5 million times since it first started measuring the time! Actually it is probably two and a half million ticks and two and a half million tocks...

Despite never having been an abbey it has cloisters - not sure what it is about walking around a cloister but I always have to do it when visiting somewhere with one! And this is the largest cloister in England.

The great treasure of Salisbury is the best preserved copy of the original Magna Carta, agreed by King John at Runnymede on 15 June 1215 and which laid down the beginnings of English law, since copied around the world. Thirteen copies of the Magna Carta were made, only four of which still exist. Two are in the British Library and one lies at Lincoln within the castle. The one at Salisbury was taken originally to the cathedral at Old Sarum. It is written in extremely small writing on a single piece of parchment in Medieval Latin.

At Runnymede King John was urged to sign by his half brother, William Longspeé. A sculpture of this moment can be seen in the cathedral and William was buried there between two of the Nave pillars. In another wonderful bit of gossip, the cathedral website informs us that when his tomb was opened after many centuries there was a dead rat with traces of arsenic in it found lying inside his skull. A strange way to die, poisoned by a poisoned rat eating its way into your head - you'd have thought someone would have noticed and shooed it away... One possibility to be considered is that perhaps it was William who was poisoned and that the unfortunate rat chose the wrong head to eat into...

There are some fine carvings in the cathedral and the following photographs concentrate on them.

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Exeter Cathedral

Saturday 26 August 2023. We decided to go into the cathedral at Exeter and have a look around.

Cathedral Close usually, I imagine, is a haven of peace and tranquility but a drumming troupe were being very successful at destroying all of that very loudly and with a great deal of repetition of rhythm, something akin to rhythm, and sometimes (most of the time) just general noisome row.

A craft market was taking place before the door of the cathedral with all sorts of home-made articles from jewellery, to soap, artwork, and beer.

Quite a large number of statues still stand in their niches on the West front of the cathedral. The cathedral was founded in 1050 CE and rebuilt by the Normans whose twin towers still exist. Apart from these and most of the external walls the cathedral was rebuilt again during the late 13th and 14th centuries.

We paid to go inside, but the chancel area and most of the south aisle were roped off due to restoration work. The price was modest but whether that was because of the works restricting access or their usual price I'm not sure. There were no signs to say one way or the other. Consequently you were left feeling a little aggrieved as the chancel with its choirstalls and (especially here in Exeter) the misericords are usually the place to find the best carvings and woodwork. From the back of the nave, though, you get a spectacular view.

Exeter has the longest uninterrupted medieval vaulted ceiling in the world. It is stunning. Moreover, it is well lit by the windows the absence of which can leave many cathedral roofs in shadowy darkness. Henrietta Anne of England, the youngest daughter of King Charles I, was baptised here in 1644.

The Martyrs' Pulpit towards the chancel end of the nave. Carved in the 1870s in sandstone, it has six panels depicting martryrs who have died for their faith. It is dedicated to Bishop John Coleridge Patteson, who only a few years prior to this pulpit being made had been killed in 1871 by the islanders of Nukapu in the Soloman Isles.

Without being judgemental, I'll just point out that being a missionary requires one to persuade a population that the god or gods they have worshipped for centuries if not longer are either worthless or are the same as yours anyway and that your way of worshipping is better than theirs. You won't be able to provide any actual proof of this. Hardly surprising that they might take a bit of umbrage really. And indeed the panel depicting him shows his body being placed into a canoe by three natives, to be returned to his ship. Not the act of a people who killed for fun...

The screen separates the nave from the chancel, where the crossing would be if the cathedral had a central tower. Above it is the organ. The keyboards are on the other side to that which we see here and there is a minstrel's gallery with carved angels playing musical instruments.

The Astronomical Clock has a bottom dial dating from 1484 whilst the upper dial showing the minutes was added in 1760.

At the bottom of the door below the clock is a small round hole dating from the early 1600s. It allowed the Bishop's cat to get behind to chase out (let's be optimistic) the rodents that were attracted to the animal fat with which the clock was lubricated!

The monument to Valentine Carey who, following a spell as Dean of St Pauls in London, was Bishop of Exeter from 1621 to his death in 1626. He had returned to London to die and was buried in St Pauls. Any monument he had there did not survive the Great Fire of London in 1666.

Coach Trip to Sidmouth, August 2023, Index
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Bridlington, June 2023

Welcome to this series of articles about a few days break in and around Bridlington in the English County of Yorkshire.

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

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Beverley Minster

Tuesday 6 June 2023. Staying for a few days in Bridlington, we caught the 121 bus service from Bridlington to Beverley to have a look at the Minster. Officially it is the Parish Church of St John and Saint Martin. It was originally a Collegiate Church - it is not a cathedral.

The journey took just over an hour and from Beverley bus station it was a short walk to the Minster, with plenty of signposts pointing the way. It has an ancient past. St John of Beverley was Archbishop of York from 706 to c714 and had founded a monastery at Beverley c700. He was canonised as a saint in 1037 - still in Saxon times - and somewhat incredibly his remains still lie beneath the nave of the present church. The Saint John of the church's name is, however, St John the Baptist - not it's own saint.

The original church was destroyed c850 perhaps, if not probably, by Vikings. It was rebuilt and re-endowed by England's first king, King Athelstan, grandson of King Alfred the Great in the first half of the 10th century. It was rebuilt again in stone following the canonisation of the saint, a high stone tower was added several years before the Norman Conquest and the Minster became a place of pilgrimage for worshippers wishing to see and pray at the shrine of St John of Beverley.

An enclosed wooden staircase. I don't know any other details I'm afraid, it may have led to the organ or to somewhere else. I've done searches for it but they all lead to a stone spiral staircase for going up the towers or to an interior staircase set into the internal wall of the North Choir Aisle which led to a now demolished Chapter House. If you know, please leave a comment.

There are some fascinating carvings, both in stone and wood. Whilst we have a look at some of these I'll just carry on with the history a bit.

Nothing remains of the Saxon churches now. A major fire in 1188 left the Minster in need of a total rebuild and the earliest work in the present church dates from this time.

Work to complete the Minster took several hundreds of years. There were a few hiccups along the way. The collapse of a new lantern tower required parts of the building to be started again. The Black Death halted work around 1348 until towards the end of the century.

The Nave was completed by c1400 and the west twin towers were built. It is said that they were the inspiration for the towers of Westminster Abbey.

A bit of stone sculpture instead of wood. Again, I've no idea who this lady represents. Neither can I work out from her expression whether she is in rapt prayer or looking up at her husband and thinking "thou great numpty!"

Standing towards the western end of the southern aisle of the Nave, these two statues flank a doorway. They were cast from lead in 1781 and depict King Athelstan on the left (would he really have dressed like that in the 900s?) and Saint John of Beverley on the right.

The fabulous font of Frosterley marble is a remarkable survivor of the earliest Norman church and dates from c1170. The wooden cover or canopy is 18th century.

Looking west from the back of the Nave towards the organ which was built by John Snetzler and set up in the Minster in 1769. The screen was carved by a local, James Elwell in 1880.

The West Front of the Minster is unusual for the number of statues it still contains. Many of our cathedrals lost theirs in those mirthless Puritanical times. Originally they would all have been bright with paint and gilding.

Bridlington, 2023 Index
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Bridlington Priory

Monday 5 June 2023. Staying for a few days in Bridlington, we went for a look at the Priory.

Bridlington Priory was established as a monastery of Augustinian Canons Regular in 1113. It was built over the site of a former Saxon church and nunnery.

It held the earthly remains of John Twenge, otherwise known as St John of Bridlington. Born in the nearby village of Thwing in the year 1320, he joined the monks after studying at Oxford. He held several offices during his time there, serving as Prior for 17 years before his death in 1379. Several miracles have been attributed to him. He is supposed to have changed water to wine once and on another occasion he appeared to a group of 5 fishermen from Hartlepoole whose ship was in danger of being swamped in rough seas and he brought them safely to shore, whereupon they left the ship at the harbour and rushed off to the Priory to thank him. I'm being careful not to comment... Anyway he became the last Englishman to be canonised as a saint before Henry VIII split up from the Catholic Church.

There is an appliqué of twelve panels, depicting the history of the Priory. This is an embroidery technique, but with the panels in 3D rather than a flat embroidered surface like the Bayeux Tapestry for instance. Having survived the Dissolution and the destruction of some 3/4 of its buildings, it was lucky to survive its use as an arsenal just over 100 years later. Buildings and explosives do not tend to go well together...

The organ dates from 1889 by Belgian firm Anneessens and was originally a three-manual organ. It came complete with a spectacularly large low-toned pipe for Bottom-C, the reed being 32 feet long and the pipe two feet in diameter. Rebuilds were necessary at various times during the 20 century and it was fully restored and enlarged 2004-2006.

A mind-boggling pedal board - the most I've ever played was a 25-key two octave pedalboard on a Hammond organ whilst I was learning to play in the practice rooms at Swanns shop in Manchester during the early 1970s. An octave is 12 keys but the extra one was to allow a lowest note of low C and a high note of middle C.

The Priory plays host to a few other musicians too...

All that music has soothed this savage beast by the looks of it.

We found several of these little mice - the trademarks of Robert "Mouseman" Thompson.

The great west window brings our exploration to an end.

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