There and Back

Cathedrals of UK The intention is to visit and photograph all of the Engand ones - at least to start with! Here are a few I have visited to date. Canterbury Cathedral St Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, arrived on the coast of Kent as a missionary to England in 597 AD. He came from Rome, sent by Pope Gregory the Great. It is said that Gregory had been struck by the beauty of Angle slaves he saw for sale in the city market and despatched Augustine and some monks to convert them to Christianity. Augustine was given a church at Canterbury (St Martin’s, after St Martin of Tours, still standing today) by the local King, Ethelbert whose Queen, Bertha, a French Princess, was already a Christian.This building had been a place of worship during the Roman occupation of Britain and is the oldest church in England still in use. Augustine had been consecrated a bishop in France and was later made an archbishop by the Pope. He established his seat within the Roman city walls (the word ...

Our last place to visit with Gra and Jane was Ripon, not far from our holiday home High Oak,  near Pickhill.  The doorways in the West end - and I missed the splendid Gothic façade I took very few images, which in hindsight was a mistake - I have learnt in the last few years what a wealth of history I have missed. A revisit is needed! The Cathedral Church of St Peter and St Wilfrid, commonly known as Ripon Cathedral, is a cathedral in the North Yorkshire city of Ripon. Founded as a monastery by Scottish monks in the 660s, it was re-founded as a Benedictine monastery by St Wilfrid in 672 St Wilfrid, who built the stone church, with its still-surviving crypt, died in 710. Only four years later, an account of his life was written by a monk, known to us as Stephen of Ripon. He tells us that this was the first church to be built by Wilfrid, and that the church and its monastic community remained the favourite of all of his foundations. It was to Ripon that his body wa...