Chester St John's - Chester's Original Cathedral

Friday 20 June 2005. We were spending a day in Chester, a place we have visited numerous times since childhood - in fact it was one of the regular annual jaunts on a coach from primary school.

So it was with a touch of surprise that, having walked a little further up the river bank than we usually did, we stumbled across these ruins that claimed to be Chester's original cathedral.

I knew nothing about it at the time - not even the fact that part of it was and still is standing in use as a parish church. At the time of our visit it was thought to have been founded by King Æthelred in the year 869 CE. However it is now thought that Æthelred built over the remains of an even earlier Celtic church and worship here may date from the 3rd or 4th centuries, making the site one of the oldest sites in Europe still in use for worship.

The Saxon church was built of stone and in 973 CE King Edgar, only the 5th King of all England, came here to receive homage of his subject regional kings, being rowed by six of them down the River Dee to this church from his temporary headquarters at a site now known as Edgar's Field. In 1075 the first Norman Bishop moved himself here from Lichfield and pulled down the Saxon Minster to build St John's. It took 200 years and it pre-dated Durham Cathedral by just 13 years. It was known as the Cathedral and Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross and St John the Baptist. It was said to have a fragment of the true Cross - a sliver of wood from the cross of Jesus, brought back from Jerusalem after the Crusades.

In 1468 the central tower collapsed. With Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the east end of the church was demolished - it is the remains of these ruins that we are wandering about. The locals petitioned Queen Elizabeth I to retain the church as a parish church. She agreed at the price of taking all the lead from the roof. In 1572 the northwest tower partially collapsed. In 1574 the rest of it collapsed, destroying some of the bays of the nave which were rebuilt to a "magnificent scale".

During the English Civil War a sniper used the roof of the west tower to take a pot shot at King Charles I who was on the roof of the new (current) cathedral, watching the Battle of Rowton Heath, though other versions of the battle have Charles watching from the Phoenix Tower on Chester's city wall. Both versions may be true as, if the sound of a musket ball striking nearby was heard, he may well have been persuaded to move out of range. The surviving parish church was restored in the 19th century, though during the restoration of the twice-fallen northwest tower, it went for third time lucky and took the north porch with it.

To one side of an archway an old medieval coffin, hewn from a block of oak has been built into the stonework. Inside it has an inscription to remind people where they came from and to where they must inevitably go: Dust to Dust. Someday I really must go back and look inside the parish church. The mostly Early English-style architechture is said to be inspiring and contains much of the original Norman masonry.

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Ottoman Treasures Cruise 16-23 August 2010

Highlights of a week cruising the Aegean Sea on the Thomson Celebration cruise ship. The itinerary is Marmaris, Turkey > Day at Sea > Istanbul, Turkey > The Dardanelle Straits > Kusadasi, Turkey > Rhodes, Greece. Excursions include the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and the Basilica Cistern in Istanbul; the Basilica and tomb of the Apostle, St John and the village of Sirince in Turkey, and an independent wander around Rhodes town.

Each place of interest is shown on its own separate article, reached by clicking/tapping the photos below. A link on each page will bring you back here.

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I've Been for a Spin!

A beautiful day in Blackpool! And here's a view of St John's church tower from an angle you don't often get to see!

We set out early this morning to our favourite cafe, Quilligan's, for breakfast. As we walked in Sean told us we had just missed David and Jeannie by 5 minutes. So we met up to find David with his camera round his neck fancying a go on the Big Wheel that's appeared in St John's Square.

I didn't have my camera with me so the photos here have been taken on my mobile phone. The big wheel is there until May so hopefully I'll get a chance to take some better quality photos before it goes.

This is the view looking down Church Street. The Winter Gardens is first on the left and the new street lighting posts which have projectors so that designs float up and down the street at night. The green dome of the Grand Theatre can be seen further down the street and then the sea and Tower forming the backdrop. At the very top left of the photo can be seen the Central Pier with its own Big Wheel.

Looking north east over Cedar Square and Topping Street towards the bus station. Above it, sticking up on the horizon, is the water tower at the top of the last hill before the ground slopes down towards Bispham and Thornton and the River Wyre.

And then home to put up the kitchen blind I've been putting off for weeks... It was just as frustrating and fiddly as I expected...

In the Steps of St John the Apostle

Saturday, 21 August 2010. The Thomson Celebration is in Kusadasi, Turkey. The main tour of the day will be going to the ancient city of Ephesus, but having been there twice already (links to relevant blog entries at the end) we are today going to see the remains of the basilica and the tomb of St John the Apostle who came to live here and perhaps wrote his gospel here.

Moored on the opposite side of the wharf was a huge cruise ship of the Celebrity-X line. A Turkish dance troupe was doing their stuff on the dockside, but I'm not sure whether they were for the other ship or for us or perhaps weren't all that bothered and would do their stuff for anyone who showed an interest...

And before I get loads of emails asking about that really weird hat the chap in red is wearing, if you look again a bit more closely you'll see that it is a woman standing behind him! Her sleeve is the same colour as the ship and even I looked twice when I saw it! Looks a bit like a fish with a bird's legs standing on his head...

So we lump ourselves onto a coach and sit looking bemused at the staggering amount of people who seem unable to understand the need to find a bus marked with their own ship's name or the correct number before our guide decides he's got enough of us to go and we set off on our semi-biblical morning.

The first stop is at the golden statue of the Virgin Mary on the hillside leading to her house, which again we have visited before and the links are below, should you be interested. The statue was the gift of an American Society and that's as much as I had an interest in knowing before the marvellous views over the steep drop on the other side of the road took my attention. No doubt the guide told the rest of the bus load the date it was built, the material, the weight, how many mules it took to bring it up the hill etc...

But I had found something else to look at and it was a sight missed by the vast majority of those whose attention was making the guide think "Hey, these dates are really grabbing them! I must look up some more for later on in the tour..."

On the hillside opposite is the Odeion or Small Theatre close to the entrance to Ephesus. It was built as a council chamber aound 150 BC and was originally roofed and seats 1400 people. The city of Ephesus continues to the left and then round away from our viewpoint around the edge of the hill against which the Odeion is built. Hey up! They are all heading back towards the bus! There's only three of us have bothered to look this way.

The Basilica of St John was built over the remains of a first century AD temple around 530 AD by Emperor Justinian, who you may remember from an entry of a few days ago, was also building Hagia Sophia and the water cistern at Istanbul at the time.

This is a partially reconstructed wall to give some idea of how the basilica may have looked. I'd recommend a visit to the Sacred Destinations web site for anyone interested in reading further. They also have a photograph of a model of how the basilica once looked.

There were several rebuilds of the city of Ephesus. The first city was on top of the hill on which the basilica stands, in the heart of what now is a ruined fortress. The famous ruined city we visit today is the third city and the modern one, close to this hill, is now called Selçuk.

The Tomb of St John the Apostle. The central dome of the basilica was placed over the tomb. A small grating can be seen to the left of the photo. Behind this again is a rectangular grated hole with steps leading down, presumably into the chamber of the tomb. St John is the only one of the saints whose body has never been claimed by any church. The legend is that on entering his tomb whilst alive, an intense light prevented the other apostles from following him. When the light dissipated, so had all sign of him. Just a dust was left, floating in the tomb. Manna... The tomb was opened in the reign of Constantine the Roman Emperor. No body or relics were found.

The size of the basilica was such that if still standing it would today be the seventh largest basilica in the world. It fell into ruin with the decline of Ephesus and was converted to a mosque in 1330 only to be completely destroyed in 1402 by the Mongol horde of Timur or Tamerlane who had conquered almost as much of the world as Alexander and was likewise termed "the Great". He had been through Delhi and Moscow and was on his way back from Persia when he passed this way and the story goes that the Ephesians were so nervous they sent all their children to process out of their open gates, singing. Tamerlane is reported as saying "What is this noise?" and then commanded his nomadic horse warriors to ride down and kill the children under the hooves of their charging mounts. There is no way to play down the horror of that act.

Some ancient wall paintings depicting saints are on display in situ - in a small room, almost a cave. However they can only be seen from inside and you are not allowed in. To facilitate viewing a large mirror has been placed on the rear wall but in reality, all you see is your reflection - silhouetted against the bright doorway whilst all the surrounding detail is pitch dark by comparison. I took a photo but only saw the painting on the left once we were home and I had fiddled for quite a while with Photoshop! The painting on the right can vaguely be seen, but the head is obliterated by the glare of the reflected doorway.

Recent excavations have revealed this baptismal pool.

From the basilica site you can look down to an earlier site. The Temple of Artemis was one of the original Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Destroyed by earthquakes and looted for building materials there are just a few scattered stones and one reconstructed pillar. A link to a previous visit is below.

Previous related entries from this blog:

Turkish Delights
The Awe-Inspiring Ephesus
The House of the Virgin Mary
The Temple of Artemis

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The Awe-Inspiring Ephesus

Monday, 24 August 2009. We had left the House of the Virgin Mary behind and travelled to a crowded coach park on the edge of the ancient city of Ephesus.

The city was reputedly founded by the female warrior sect, the Amazons. There were people living here as far back as 6000BC. It became a centre of the Ionians, sided with Greeks and Spartans against Persia, was ruled by Alexander the Great and later by the Romans under Constantine. We are impressed as soon as we enter the city, but the route that tourists take has been cunningly laid out so that it just keeps getting better and better.

As we enter the site we see the Odeion or Small Theatre which was built around 150 BC. It seated around 1400 people and was used both as council chamber and as a theatre. It was originally roofed - there are no gutters to take rainwater from the stage area. We spent a few minutes exploring it, even though Ghengis,our guide, had told us not to get too excited about this as there was a larger theatre to come later.

The Pollio Fountain. A major statue resides in a museum and the statues grouped here were brought following the collapse of an adjoining building. According to an inscription, the fountain was constructed by Sextilius Pollia in 97 AD.

One of a pair of flying representations of the goddess Nike that adorned the Gate of Heracles which gave access to Curetes Street.

According to mythology, the Curetes were semi-deities who clashed their weapons while Zeus's mistress Leto gave birth to the twins Artemis and Apollo, so that Zeus's jealous wife Hera would be confused and not see the birth. (They led complicated lives, the Greek gods - but they were easily distracted...)

The Trajan fountain. The fountain was erected between 102 and 104 A.D. and as the attached inscription reads, was consecrated to the Emperor Trajan. This is a "reduced" reconstruction as originally the pediment was set 12 metres high. Most of the statuary from here was so fine it is now in the museum.

The Temple of Hadrian on Curetes Street. Here we see the front of a porch - the main building was set back and we shall see an arched pediment on that presently.

On the front of the porch in the centre of the arch is a bust of Tyche, the goddess of the city.

On the arched pediment of the temple itself is what was described as a Medusa. It doesn't look like a Medusa it looks more like a youth with curly hair and on a subsequent visit this was described as a representation of Hadrian's male lover. History can sometimes change as our understanding of events and knowledge becomes clearer or better supported from new archaeological finds.

There are some well preserved fragments of carving here. This row of figures was carved before the year 138, though what we see here is a cast of the original which is in the nearby museum.

The latrina built in the first century AD are the public toilets of Ephesus. The toilets were ranged side by side with no partition between them. In the middle was a square pool. The floor was paved with mosaics. A sponge on a stick was the Roman's version of toilet paper. It would be cleaned and rinsed in the gutter to the left of the chap's feet which would have running water along it.

The Library of Celcus. Tiberius Julius Celsus Polemaeanus between either 105-106 or 106-107 AD was the Proconsul of the Asian province, the capital of which was Ephesus.

This is a reconstruction. It was built between 110 and 135 AD, destroyed by fire some centuries later and finally toppled by an earthquake 900-1000 years after it was built. The facade was reconstructed from fallen stone in 1970-78.

The upstairs windows face east so that the morning sun shone into the reading rooms. They were glazed with horn to let in light but to keep out rain and wind which might damage the scrolls kept in the library.

The gate with three passage ways at the right of the Celsus Library was built in 40 A.D by the slaves Mazeus and Mythridates for their emperor, Augustus, who gave them their freedom.

A detail of the carving on the face of the gateway. A damaged bull's head carving can be found in a corner of the gateway interior.

We passed through the gateway and came to the area where both St Paul and St John had preached. St Paul became embroiled in arguments with the silversmiths whose living was dependent on their sale of small figures of the goddess Artemis whose temple was nearby and was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

The magnificent amphitheatre is the second one you come to - even the first which was more a political debating forum is impressive but this is much larger and is why Genghis had told us not to be overly impressed with the Oedion when we first entered Ephesus. St Paul preached here for three years, this being recorded in the Acts of the Apostles. The Acts mention the Riot of the Silversmiths - they made silver figures of the goddess Artemis and Paul's attempts to convert people to Christianity were bad for business...

The Great Theatre was first constructed in the Hellenistic Period, in the third century BC during the reign of Lysimachos, but then during the Roman Period, it was enlarged and formed its current style as seen today. It seats 25,000.

Harbour Street runs from the theatre down to the old Roman Harbour. In the 1700 or so years since the fall of the Roman empire the harbour silted up so much that the sea is now seven or eight kilometers away. St John the Apostle fell foul of the same silversmiths as St Paul and was chased down this street, taking refuge in a castle on the hill in the distance. The Roman general Mark Anthony visited Ephesus often, but in 33 AD he brought Queen Cleopatra with him and they walked hand in hand down this street.

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