Winchester

Today was my first proper day off work, and it was a scorcher! We escaped from the heat though in the cool, cloistered ancientness of Winchester Cathedral…

We went for the full guided tour, which was great. Everything is so old – you begin to be quite dismissive of all the ‘new’ sixteenth century stuff as you marvel at stuff that was knocked up in years with just three figures and used recycled Roman columns!

It started off in the year 1000ish with these lovely rounded arches…

But most of it has been remodelled in the 1300s/1400s into the gothic style…

I’m sure there’s more to it than pointy or non-pointy arches, but either way it’s all pretty impressive!

There’s lots of stained glass too, with marvellous stories attached to each one…

And if you get bored looking up, just look down to the beautiful Tudor tiles…

Or go further down, down below, into the crypt where there is this marvellous modern sulpture by Antony Gormley…

As you can imagine, I took LOADS of photos and tried to make my brain remember all the interesting facts I was hearing about (even though it’s going to be 39 years old tomorrow)! The one spot I knew I really wanted to visit though was this – Jane Austen’s grave. I said a quiet thank you for the inspiring writing and wondered if she ever fathomed that more people would be making a pilgrimage to visit her final resting place rather than any of the other saints, Kings, Queens and noble men that were buried there before…