A Tale of Canterbury

The English town of Canterbury is famous for 2 things -The Canterbury Cathedral and Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  I have not read all of the Canterbury Tales, although I may have to.  I understand that many of them are funny and a bit racy.

The Cathedral is the main church in England.  The Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, is installed here even though he resides in London (Westminster Abby.)  However, when he comes to Canterbury, he must ask the Dean of Canterbury Cathedral for permission to enter the church.  And, here I thought only Lutherans get hung up on church politics!

The Cathedral has a fascinating history.  A saint was killed here, It is the site of miracles.  A king and the Black Knight, who was supposed to become king, are buried here.  The Cathedral has been built, burned, rebuilt, added on to,  partially demolished, refurbished, had windows broken and reinstalled, has glass window from the 11th century as well as the 20th century and many years in between, was the site of grave robbing, flogging of a king, and has modern art exhibits in many of the chapels. We saw a chapel recently uncovered, which had been walled off for centuries.  As our guide said, it is a living church with services and activities for all.

This was our first view of the Canterbury Cathedral.  Much of the stone used for carvings and structures is centuries old and deteriorating.  Each piece must be evaluated and/or removed.  Then the new, and hopefully more durable, stone is hand carved and fit back in the space.  In many cases, parts of the design carved hundreds of years ago is completely missing.  There are no drawings to show what it looked like, so they just have to guess based on similar carvings nearby.

The restoration has been going on since 2005, I think, and they plan to be done by 2022.  I do not think they will make the deadline.  Currently there are about 60 miles of scaffolding covering the west end of the cathedral.

This is the south transept, near the middle of the cathedral.  The stained glass windows are magnificent, and this is just one set of dozens of intricate windows.  The glass is being removed, one pane at a time, cleaned and reset. As the window pane is reinstalled, they are adding an exterior layer of clear glass to protect the window from the elements (especially pollution.)

This cross marks the spot where Thomas of Beckett was killed by 2 men who thought that was what King Henry II wanted.  It was not.  The king later denounced the killing and asked to be forgiven, even to the extent of being flogged to pay for his sins.

Some of the ceilings have the crests of English families.  All the crests of the Beckett family were defaced.


Ornate carving decorates all parts of the cathedral, inside and outside.  Even the entrance to the lane leading to the cathedral is fancy.






























During World War II, Germany bombed cultural sights to demoralize the British.  They bombed Canterbury, using flares to mark the place for bombers to hit.  Fortunately a wind blew the smoke to the south, so the cathedral was spared.  However, a nearby church was badly damaged.  This bell tower is all that is left of it.