The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln
Recently an architect friend of mine came over from Almería, Spain with his family and I took them to see Lincoln Cathedral. Juan told me how little was known about English Gothic in Spain and as far as he was concerned Lincoln Cathedral was one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in the world. I didn’t think much more about it until I took an English friend round the other day who happens to be a guide at Canterbury Cathedral. He was overawed by the size of the cathedral and the beauty of the various stages of architecture. For the second trip with Michael I took along the Fuji to attempt some autumn photography and have managed to get some of the results up onto Flickr. Here are some samples, with first, the view of the cathedral from the medieval bishop’s palace:
One shot I was really pleased with was this capture of the Dean’s Eye in the north transept of the cathedral. How it came out like this I will never know. Still the right place for miracles to happen, and it is some of the most important medieval stained glass in europe:
Finally a look at the nave showing outstanding examples of early English rib vaulting as started by St Hugh of Lincoln in about 1180:
This started me thinking on how much of the North of England’s Gothic architecture is unknown. Certainly we tend to think of Cambridge, Westminster & the southern cathedrals, but rarely do we see discussed the enormous achievements of York & Lincoln (two of the largest Gothic structures in Europe) or the beauty of some of the smaller structures like Beverley. If you click on any of the above photographs it will take you to my Flickr page and you can see the rest of the Lincoln photos as I upload them. Let me know your views on travel in north England and particularly the architecture.
