Being well into my second pass of the book at reference 1, bought on the occasion of the visit to Guildford Cathedral noticed at reference 2, we thought it proper that our last outing before Christmas should be to Guildford Cathedral, that is to say on the Tuesday. Thinking, rightly as it turned out, that given the surging plague, it was unlikely that there would be many people there.
Started off by a walk around the outside, which I am pleased to report is possible, car park on the north side notwithstanding. Not something that is true of many cathedrals, with outbuildings, houses and monastic remnants usually taking at least one side.
Nicely proportioned stonework around the windows, but not sure about the merits of leaving all the tool marks. Maybe not even left there, maybe put there. Otherwise why the complicated markings lower left?
Two parking slots for the Bishop and his Lady, one parking slot for the Dean, as it happens another lady. No idea why this snap is so palid compared with the others: no doubt a proper geek would be able to match the colours to those of the next snap.
A complicated corner. I find some of the sculptures, some by Eric Gill, a long-time associate of Maufe, a bit crude in detail, to the point of being ugly. But the outside ones are growing on me, not least because of the smooth way they fit into the design as a whole.
One of these days, we will come by train and take the walk up from the station.
The south doors, of which the right hand one is visible and carries reliefs depicting occupations proper to gentlemen. Ladies to the left. I think the statue above is one of Gill's and is of John the Baptist. Plus a bad attack of image processing artefacts, possibly Moiré patterns.
The golden statue on top of the tower doesn't look so big from here, but we get a picture in the Maufe book, all fifteen feet of it. Gold leaf on copper on a wrought iron skeleton. They worked hard on the face of the angel to make it sexless. Not sure about that, given that one might think that archangels tend to have male names. On the other hand, Bing tells me that: '... archangels exist outside of any one religion or culture, and they exist outside of time and space. They are able to view reality, including our past, present and future as one stream of energy within the present moment, which enables them to offer powerful guidance and enlightening new perspectives...'. Maybe rank and file angels follow LGBTQ guidelines on such matters, while archangels are men.
The view snapped above brought Battersea and Bankside power stations to mind, and on checking this afternoon I find that they were approximately contemporary, allowing for the second world war. Brick must have been the material of the moment.
Inside, the nave was very impressive, once again, after its wash and brush-up. And fake, in the sense that I think the stone is mostly decorative rather than structural. With bricks for the walls and reinforced concrete for the roof - a novelty at the time. I dare say that the power stations are both roofed with streel trusses. While I remember some of the large churches in Paris being roofed very much in the way of a railway station, with elaborate steel arches.
I also remembered the large church on the edge of Tavistock, noticed at reference 4, declared surplus by the Anglican and made over to the Catholics. On one visit, the place was empty apart from the priest, about to celebrate some important event in the church calendar by himself. I think Catholics differ from Anglicans in that to them the ceremony is important, in monasteries (like Buckfast) is all important. The proper glorification of the Lord is more important than having herds of mere mortals as witnesses. I suppose paying a priest to say masses for your soul after you are dead is more of the same. While my recollection is that Greek and Roman pagan priests got on with their business, without bothering much about a congregation at all. What was important to them - and their paymasters - was that the various divinities got a whiff of a quality burnt offering.
Lots of quality joinery in the chapter house. But it looks as if the chapter prefer regular chairs - very much the sort of thing we had in the civil service, at least back in the 1980's, and very comfortable they were too.
Not sure about the Lady Chapel, which stuck me as a little fussy, despite the quality of the detailing. Maybe I will come to like it better - and it is a good place to be quiet in now. Sanctuary light was lit, but was rather inconspicuous. Just about visible lower left.
I liked the font, which had its covered raised on this occasion, giving one a view of the neat plug hole at the bottom. Practical sort of chap was Mr. Maufe.
At the time the cathedral was built, a photographic record was made, presumably now in the archives. The trusties scratched their heads a bit and thought that it was all available online - while the actual archive was probably closed for the duration. While all I can find online is the catalogue. Something to be followed up in due course as I would like to know more about how the place was built.
We decided that we would take a chance and try for Carlo's Trattoria at Newlands Corner, on the assumption that it would be as quiet as the cathedral - it certainly was quiet the last time we visited mid-week. That is to say, we needed to get from the left of the map, just inside the loop of the A3, to the loop of the A25 right. Taking the sort of inner by-pass which runs across the north of Guildford centre, again just inside the A3. Rather a tricky road for the novice with lots of traffic, lots of junctions and lots of lanes. But we made it with only one error, missing the right turn at Clandon, rather carrying onto what became the A246 to Leatherhead.
Carlo's was not busy, but quiet enough, and we got a table decently far from anyone else. Apparently they had been fully booked for the Christmas period since October - until the wave of cancellations hit them. We were given the Festive Lunch menu, rather more English flavoured than Italian, with things like roast lamb with roast potatoes. But I managed some rather good gnocci to start, small cylindrical gnocci in a brown sauce, probably involving tomatoes. Main course was pork fillets in a white sauce with a variety of vegetables, mostly not very suitable. Maybe it was a mistake having the white sauce after the brown sauce. Maybe it was more of a BH dish. But I wound up with a good tiramisu, in the traditional brick format, rather than the presently fashionable sundae glass format. Washed down with a spot of white wine by the glass, so as not to appear greedy before BH who was slated to drive. Washed down with a spot of grappa - what seemed like an enormous glass of the stuff, for which I was charged next to nothing. Very good it was too. While BH was very happy with her fish.
Round the back, just by where our car was. Same rat traps as you get everywhere.
Closed the outing by pulling into the fish ship at Great Bookham, with the result noticed at reference 3.
And wound up the day by losing at Scrabble. That is to say it was a draw on tile points, at a moderate 261 of them each, with neither of us pulling off any coups, but I lost by two penalty points because BH went out while I was holding an 'E'. I might add that we usually get four games to the envelope, a habit we got from FIL, always careful about such things.
PS 1: we saw various Wellingtonia in the course of our journey home from Guildford to Epsom. These will be noticed in due course. We also got a No.33 registration plate at 12:31, the nearest to the long sought after No.36 for a while. Although just today I got a No.35, a smart white cabriolet, possibly a Bentley, parked up outside the shops opposite what used to be the Organ Inn and roundabout, on my way to Jubilee Way. I'll get there in the end.
PS 2: I had thought that 'trattoria' was something to do with pavement cafés, the sort of thing you get in hot countries. But checking with Bing I find that I am quite wrong: ... trattoria, from trattore 'host, keeper of an eating house', from trattare 'to treat', from Latin tractare, frequentative of trahere (past participle tractus) 'to draw'. So there. But maybe I had better check in a proper dictionary when I get the opportunity.
References
Reference 1: Edward Maufe: Architect and Cathedral Builder - Juliet Dunmur - 2019.
Reference 2: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/08/home-via-guildford.html.
Reference 3: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2021/12/smoking-by-mouth.html.
Reference 4: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/search?q=tavistock+catholic.
Reference 5: http://www.carlostrattoria.com/.
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