My shameful sojourn in the Ringing Chamber
Cheryl, the tower guide, called down the spiral stairs to her assistant: “Put him in the Ringing Chamber.” It was I who was put in the Ringing Chamber, and it was a kind act.
I had bitten off more than I could chew by attempting the turret stair to the top of the central tower of Winchester Cathedral. We were warned of views down from heights and shouldernarrow passages, as on the turret stair. I hadn’t reckoned on the shallow treads of the steps and my knee gave out. It was humiliating, but the guides could not have been kinder or more professional in minimising risk.
The Ringing Chamber was full of interest – a big room as square as the tower, with well preserved Norman arches on each side, a clock that whirred and chimed at the quarters and boards recording peals of 5002 Stedman Cinques in 1938 or 5280 Cambridge Surprise Maximus rung in 2006 in four hours 11 minutes.
I’d still recommend the tower tour for anyone ordinarily fit and free from claustrophobia and acrophobia. It’s £7.50 well spent. Even I saw what I’d come for: the roof space above the stone vaults of the nave and under the lead roof. Since the fire at Notre-dame, more people have become aware of such medieval wonders.
At Winchester, a firm wooden walkway runs for 300ft, the length of the nave, down the middle of the dark roof space. It rests on great oak timbers spanning the width of the cathedral, supported by the outer walls. One can still see a round timber scaffold pole sawn off flush with the top of a pillar remoulded in the 14th century. From the walkway, the visitor can look down on the upper face of the stone vaulting, which plunges into deep pools, as it were, towards the pillars from which the ribs spring.
If the space above the vaulting were to fill with water, as it might if a fire were being fought, the weight could bring the structure down. So there are devices to open up drains through the stonework. On the other hand, open vents from the nave into
the roof space might set a fire roaring as in a chimney. Volunteers dropping poppy petals for Remembrance Sunday down into the nave through round openings at the top of the vault (through which chains for chandeliers once hung) found that the warm air from below blew them back. So these holes are generally stopped up with bungs to prevent a draught.
Hecatombs of flies that never found their way out are piled below the window at the west end. A door in the south wall here leads out to the parapet running the length of the cathedral at the bottom of the steeply pitched lead roof. One can see patches looking as though they are sewn on to the lead, mending cracks or blisters made by expansion and contraction on the sunny south side.
Exhibition galleries on three floors are a new feature in the cathedral – accessible by lift if need be. It’s an ingenious use of space at the end of the south transept in the triforium long left unused.
I was delighted by the 15th-century mortuary chests that once held the remains of Saxon kings. In the 17th century, new chests enclosed them, and these six chests have been returned to the stone screen round the high altar. The most exiting find during scientific investigation of their contents (Sacred Mysteries, June 3 2016) was of a woman’s bones that carbon dating indicates could be those of Queen Emma, wife of Canute and mother of Edward the Confessor. I’m glad it is not her bones but a 3D-printed replica that’s now on display in the new exhibition.