United Kingdon - Tuesday - Day Two

United Kingdom - Tuesday - Day Two

Well, today Larry had to work for a few hours - till 2:00 setting up his class.  While he worked, Margaret booked tours.  We are going to be so busy this weekend.  We had a light lunch and then set out to find Stonehenge.  We never found it.  In stead we got sidetracked.

We ended up in Salisbury where we toured the Salisbury Cathedral.  Our opinion was that it was a much better choice than Stonehenge.  The cathedral in Salisbury has the highest spire of any cathedral in England - 404 feet.  That is almost twice the height of the Salt Lake City temple's highest spire - 210 feet.  The spire was added after the cathedral was built. The cathedral was not damaged in World War II becasue the German's did not want to damage it becasue it worked as a tall landmark to help with night raids.

We got there and asked if there was a tour.  One was starting at 4:00, but our guide started the tour 10 minutes early and just ook us.  It was very nice. 

First we went to the Charter House.  This is where the "principals" of the cathedral met to decide what to do relative to the cathedral.  It was a stunningly beautiful room and it was in the middle of a restoration.  We were not allowed to take pictures there becasue one of the four original copies of the Magna Carta is displayed in that room.  (The Magna Carta was rules about equality, property ownership, punishments, land ownership, etc. - it was the basis of English law and was a guide for the United States constitution.)

 Outside the Charter house was the cloister.  During the World Wars it was used as a prisoner of war camp.



We then went inside the cathedral.  It is considered a classic example of Gothis architecture - gargoyles, valted ceilings, flying butresses and stained glass.  We learned a lot.  It was hard to believe that we were standing in a building constructed more than 750 years ago - three times older than the United States.  It was beautiful and truely awsome in te whole sence of the word.

This is the "quire" (yes that is how you spell it - pronounce it "choir").  We were there for a service that included scripture reading and music.  It was very nice.

During the Crusades, Richard the Lion Hearted was captured.  There was a ransome demanded for his release.  This is a picure of the trunk that the ransom was sent in.  Five padlocs and seven other locks.  Each lock had a speaparate key that was held by a seven different men.  The trunck was so heavy that it couldn't be stolen or even budged (yes Larry tried).  Built 600 years ago.

There are a lot of notaries burid in the cathedral.. This is somebodies vault.  The Knights and royalty were always depicted as beautiful people.  However, many of the bishops wanted their effigy shown giving up the "mortal" so they were depicted as emaciated.

Around the cathedral is a "close" which is like a park.  In the olden days there was a graveyard and the grass was kept short by sheep.  Now it is a well used park.  The buldings around the close were assigned to the principals of the cathedral.  Now many of them are museums.

As a final comment, we had to drive 40 miles to Salisbury.  Again, that was white-knuckle time.  We only took the wrong turn 4 times, but the GPS put us back on track really fast.  And we got to go through some little communities with interesting names, such as, Jacks Bush, Wallop, and Nether Wallop.