Oddities of Durham Cathedral

In one sense cathedrals are the bane of American travelers to the Old World.  They are big, impressive, historic buildings.  You are expected to visit them.  But they so often are underwhelming.

Yes, I said underwhelming.  This despite being massive things, wonders of medieval construction, contemplative places to ponder the nature of God.

Most of them seem to be a hodge podge of different eras, with arches and apses that fascinate architecture geeks only.  And although there are usually active congregations they do not seem like going concerns regards being houses of worship.  A few hundred seats in a building the size of a zeppelin hanger.

But there are some that I find interesting nonetheless, and on a side trip to Durham I visited the cathedral there.  Most of my pictures are external shots as they do not allow photography.  If you want their official web page it is here.  If you prefer the wikipedia version, here it is.  So a few meandering pictures and thoughts:

This is the "Sanctuary Knocker".  Apparently in the middle ages those fleeing the authorities could turn up at the door of the church, bang on the door with this thing-also called a hagoday-and be admitted.  They were safe inside for 37 days, at the end of which time they had to decide whether they would face trial or leave the country by the nearest port.

A couple of thoughts.  First, this is a replica.  The original was in an exhibit at the cathedral which was closed for renovations.  Second, although the brass ring is worn smooth from those grasping at it you will note that there is a metal peg keeping anyone from trying this intriguing legal strategy in the modern era.  And finally, the accompanying plaque made no mention of how the fugitive from justice was supposed to safely get from the cathedral to the port! I wonder if the Ecclesiatical Authorities exercized a little discretion in deciding how much help they would provide in this respect.  Actually those spoil sports in Parliament eliminated the right of sanctuary in 1623, so bolting the thing down is mostly just to keep yobs from making noise.

Some time back I was pondering a "possible" reused Roman building stone and concluded it was a medieval sun dial.  Here is a near perfect match in situ at Durham cathedral.  Case closed.

As I have mentioned before in a post on Durham, the legend of its founding involves a milk maid seeking a lost "Dun Cow" which involved her leading a band of monks to the spot.  At which point they decided it was just the spot where St.Cuthbert, whose bones they were carrying, wanted them to build a cathedral.

Dun Cow Lane still exists and is said to trace the path of the lost cow.  Here it is in its entire modern length!

Note the edge of the cathedral on the left.  Clearly old bossy was in the home stretch here.  There are only a few doors opening onto Dun Cow Lane. 

Here is more information on Dun Cow Cottage which seems to get its name and address from the road running in back of it.

This is another doorway opening onto Dun Cow Lane.  I can't help it, I am just a serious fan-boy of enigmatic, bricked over doorways!

As I mentioned, Durham cathedral does not allow photographs inside the church proper.  So the image below is from their website.

Its the tomb of The Venerable Bede, an early churchman who wrote an infuriatingly incomplete history of Dark Ages England.  Oh, I had my hat off as I always do in a place of worship, and I wished the old boy Requiesit in Pace.  But my goodness Bedester, the things you knew and did not bother to write down!

From Beltingham to.....Narnia?

My visit to Beltingham was part of a walking loop that I undertook with one of my digging buddies, Scott from LA.  The local hiking club that put it together may have stretched the truth just a bit.  It seemed longer than the 8 miles advertised.  And that summer cottage made entirely of sheep bones?  We looked long and hard for it, and we were every bit as disappointed as you would have been to miss such a marvel.

Eventually we ditched the itinerary and went off on our own, following dead reckoning and the occasional peek at Scott's Tricorder that gave us ambiguous Google Earth readings.

It is when off the beaten path that you find the real enigmas.

Midgeholm does not appear on any map of the area.  Looking off in the direction indicated we could see a good distance.  Nothing.  Perhaps it is the rallying point for the pesky insects that make mid summer digging at Vindolanda such an ordeal.

Soon we were on a very rural lane.  We walked on it for a mile and the only vehicle that went by us was a tractor pulling hay. Which makes this roadside feature hard to explain.

It is a bus bench.  The back is missing, the iron supports are rusted.  There are several good sized trees growing up from underneath.

Why is it there?  It has certainly been out of service for decades, but as I looked about the surrounding landscape I could not see any justification for a bus stop.  No farm houses.  No derelict quarries or lime kilns.  There is nothing, and within the memory of Man Now Living there has been nothing there.

It gave me a strange feeling, and the first thing I thought of was a line from the C.S. Lewis book The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

"In about ten minutes she reached it and found that it was a lamp-post.  As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter patter of feet coming towards her."

Beltingham Part Two

My visit to Beltingham was brief, and there were things I should have spent more time hunting down.  I had read somewhere that the church contains the first memorial in the UK to a victim of an automobile accident!

And only later did I read that the church also has a perfect "leper's squint", a diagonal niche carved in the stone during the Middle Ages to allow those not allowed into the church to wittness the Elevation of the Host.  Darn, I simply must research things more intently prior to my travels!

But I did find a couple of  unexpected curiosities.  There was a tombstone from the 1870s in memory of Mary, wife of Septimus Wraune.  A most unusual name, did it relate to local antiquarian studies? 

And check out this tombstone from near the Saxon Cross:

Fairly standard stuff, if a bit better preserved than most of the stones in this location.  The odd thing was on the back side:

This is quite weathered and I have had to play with the contrast settings to bring it out.  It reads:

Our life hangs on a single thread

Which soon is cut then we are dead.

Then boast not reader of thy might.

Alive at noon and dead at night.

Affliction sore long (illegible) I bore,

Physicians were in vain.

Till God did please to give me ease

And take me from my pain.

Well.  Rather gloomy stuff from someone who died at the tender age of 20.  But to me it sounds a bit like a sort of standard inscription.  Something along the lines of: "As you are I once was, as I am you shall be." and similar sentiments you find on tombstones from Colonial times in New England.

Beltingham Church Yard

When digging at Vindolanda we get the weekends off to rest up.  Oh, and there is the occasional rain out as well.  So it is good to have a few local side trips on tap for the days when the shovels are idle.  And perhaps rusting.

This year I went over to Beltingham, a quaint village about 3 miles from Vindolanda, and had a look about the place.  It is surprising just how much history is jammed into one little church yard.

The church is from the mid 1500s, although some elements of it are felt to go back to the 1200s.  It is said to be the finest example in the UK of a "Perpendicular style" church of this era.

But it is the church yard that I found fascinating.  Lets start with the yews.

There are three huge, gnarled yew trees in the yard, the oldest of which likely predates the church and is perhaps a thousand years old.  In a rather lengthy discussion of this tree it is speculated that, yews being sacred to druidic sorts, it indicates a far longer history of worship on this site.

The eldest yew looks, for all practical purposes, to be an Ent from Tolkein!

The longevity of yews appears to be due to their continuous cycle of dying off and regenerating.  So you see old and new segments of the tree....held together with some gnarly chains and bands.

The tree is such a tangled mess of primeval foliage that it is hard to even get a picture that captures it right.

Welcome to Fangorn Forest.

But if you keep looking you find something that makes a thousand year old yew tree look like a tender young sapling.  Over on the other side of the church...

This is the remaining stub of a weathered Saxon cross, circa 680 AD.  If-and there is some debate on this point-it was not brought in from elsewhere, it would indicate a place of worship going back almost to Roman times.

And speaking of Roman, the plinth, or stone base for this cross was found to be made up of two Roman altars!

They are now in a museum at Newcastle, but the inscriptions read:

... COH IIII GALLOR SEVERIANAE ALEXANDRIANAE DEVOTAE NVMINI EIVS PORTAM CVM TVRRIBVS A FVNDAMENTIS RESTITVERVNT SVB CL XENOPHONTE LEG AVG N PR PR BR INF CVRANTE

Which translates to:



"[...] the Fourth Cohort of Gauls, Severus Alexander's own,¹ devoted to his divinity, restored this gateway together with its towers from ground-level, under Claudius Xenophon,² pro-praetorian legate of our emperor in Britannia Inferior, under the direction of [...]"

This reference to the Fourth Cohort of Gauls is pretty clear evidence that the altar was hauled over from Vindolanda, but of course gives no clue as to when.

The second altar reads:

DEAE
SAIIADAE
CVRIA TEX
TOVERDORVM
V• S • L • M

This translates to:

"To the goddess Satiada,¹
the Council of the Textoverdi²
willingly and deservedly fulfilled their vow."

This goddess is pretty much unknown beyond this inscription, and there is no certainty as to who the Textoverdi were.  Perhaps a minor tribe, it has even been suggested that Vindolanda was their civitas capital.

There is a story about these altars. 

The earliest excavator of the Vindolanda site-albeit in the casual fashion of 19th century antiquaries-was a Reverand Hedley.  Apparently while supervising excavations in 1835, Hedley "caught a death-chill while overlooking one day the excavation of a fine vessel". Evidently rainy days on the site are not a new phemomenom.  He was buried at Beltingham church yard, and as a gesture in recognition of Hedley's interests the local vicar moved the Roman altars, setting one on either side of Hedley's tomb.  In this fashion Hedley's grave was said to have been "consecrated by a cross at its foot and an interesting relic of roman piety on either side of it."

All the grave stones in Beltingham church yard are badly weathered, but if we assume the "ancient cross" in question was the Saxon example, I suspect this is Hedley's tomb:

It certainly looks to have been done in the style of a Roman tomb.  The picture of the Saxon cross shows it in the background, so the orientation looks about right.  One account I read indicated that the tomb was protected by an iron railing, but much can change in 150 years, and I saw no such enclosure anywhere in the church yard.  You may observe that there are no longer Roman altars on either side.  A new vicar came along, replacing the prior one who was a friend of Hedley.  The altars were donated to the Society of Antiquaries in Newcastle in 1858.

If you are planning a walking visit, here's how to get there.  Start at the pub in Bardon Mills.  After an appropriate stay, walk east out of town past the War Memorial.  Soon after that you will cross the South Tyne on the foot bridge.  Then take the road east about a mile until it climbs a gentle hill to Beltingham.  It is difficult to get lost in this micro village, the church is right on the tiny village green.

Beltingham is a small village, but keep an eye out for the nice Georgian house that seems to be rented out for group stays, and for the much remodeled "bastle house" that recalls earlier, less peaceful times.

A bit more on Beltingham coming up on Wednesday and Friday.  Lepers, sarcastic last words and a possible inter-dimensional portal?

Happy Diamond Jubilee, Ma'am

Even here in the States we have some awareness that Queen Elizabeth is celebrating her Diamond Jubilee this weekend.  Sixty years on the throne, my goodness.

My favorite bit of Jubilee stuff is this ad for Marmite, a yeasty sort of stuff you put-or don't put-on your bread in the morning. 

First, the conventional Marmite:

And the ad for the special Diamond Jubilee version:

I really like this ad.  Much more than I like Marmite.  Like all great British ads it hits multiple notes.  The name is changed to reflect the custom of referring to the Queen as Ma'am.  We have replaced the pot and spoon with a crown. We have the Royal Corgis.  And two toast puns...the motto "Toasting the Queen's Diamond Jubilee" and check out the Royal Crest made of five pieces of toast in a toast rack!  (the ghostly street light is a reflection, sorry).

This is not the first time the folks at Marmite have had a little fun with their logo.  Previously they put out a valentines day version made with champagne yeast!

I could go on.  Indeed, the great New Zealand Marmite Shortage deserves some recognition.  But I do not want to distract from Her Majesty on her special day. 

Happy Diamond Jubilee, Ma'am!

Steampunk Elizabeth?

As England gears up for the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth, lets not forget that even a Golden Jubilee is a pretty big deal.  While wandering around Carlisle on a rain soaked day I came across a strange commerative of that 50th anniversary.

It is a sort of industrial-art installation.  Check it out:

It was in an underpass under a busy road near Carlisle castle, so my photo quality is not the best.  Also it was rather spooky and dimly lit.  The things show cased did not seem all that regal, they appeared to be bits of old machinery with a sort of 19th century vibe to them.  Some had plaques explaining local roots, other things just.....were.

A substantial orange gear.

A plow?  And some kind of cables?

A big honkin' eggbeater.

Assorted green, orange and blue objects.

It's hard to know what to make of all this stuff.  It reminds me a little of a "Steampunk" comic, where impractical mechanisms along the lines of giant dirigibles and steam powered robots are, in defiance of conventional rules of physics, practical.

My favorite example of this genre is Girl Genius, a long running web based comic that claims to be about "Adventure, Romance and Mad Science".

I warn you, it can be addicting, but to appreciate GG you need to scroll back to the beginning episode.  And be prepared to waste some time there.

Washington D.C. - Odder than usual sights.

The exact Center of the US Capitol.  It is supposedly good luck to step on this spot.  The floor is dipped in a bit here, a consequence they say of all the luck seekers.

Each state in the Union has two statues on display in the Capitol.  Oklahoma has a nice one of Will Rogers.  Legislators and others looking for a bit of good luck rub Will's left foot.  This practice is now discouraged.

Inside one of the Congressional Office Buildings.  This Solon has just announced he will not run for re-election.  A large box  sitting in the hallway waiting for the Postal Service to pick it up.  I wonder what it contains?

We saw some protesters when we visited but most were unremarkable.  Even the Occupy encampment was just a bunch of wet tents with wet occupants.  But this was interesting.  Jesus stood totally still.  He should, as He was a manikin.  Note the weight behind His right foot.  His companion moved very, very little, but was a real human.  No sign, no chants, just stood there.  Off to one side she had a few placards laid out that referenced 9/11 in a sort of generic way.  And a large Tupperware tub marked "Jesus" that I imagine contained various accessories.