Christopher Somerville - Ships of Heaven: The Private Life of Britains Cathedrals

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First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Doubleday
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright Christopher Somerville 2019
Cover artwork by Carry Akroyd

Christopher Somerville has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.

Extract from Church Going on from The Less Deceived by Philip Larkin reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.
Extract from The Spire on by William Golding reproduced by permission of Faber & Faber Ltd.
Map by Liane Payne; cathedral layout by Global Blended Learning.
Illustrations by Richard Shailer.

Extract from Shipbuilding on , words and music by Elvis Costello & Clive Langer, copyright 1982 Universal Music Publishing MGB Limited/Warner Chappell Music Limited (PRS). All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Used by permission of Hal Leonard Europe Limited.

Every effort has been made to obtain the necessary permissions with reference to copyright material, both illustrative and quoted. We apologize for any omissions in this respect and will be pleased to make the appropriate acknowledgements in any future edition.

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ISBN 9781473527140

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To the Holy Dusters of Salisbury Cathedral, and all the cathedral volunteers up and down the land, without whose generosity and hard work the Ships of Heaven would very soon run aground.

Im six years old six or seven, maybe. Small, anyhow. Im standing on Cathedral Green in the tiny Somerset city of Wells, my head tilted back as far as my neck will crane. Up in the air its blowing a gale, driving the clouds from west to east. In front of me, filling all earth and sky, is the biggest thing Ive ever seen. Its bigger than a ship, but it looks just like one. There are people all over it, stone people, sitting very still. There are towers and battlements like a fighting warship in a storybook. And it looks as though its moving towards me, steadily and mightily. Its going to roll right over me.

I see it coming, surging through the blue water of Heaven, the sky full of clouds like white horses, blown by the west wind, streaming away behind it. Inside my head theres a rushing and a toppling. The giant square prow full of stern stone faces presses forward till it looms sky-high over my head, and suddenly the grass behind me tilts up to thump the back of my skull. I have fallen flat on my back, run down and sunk by the great ship of Wells Cathedral.

This early memory has fixed in my head forever the idea of cathedrals as ships. The superstructure of Ely Cathedral seen across a green sea of wheat, a tanker treading down wind-rippled waves. Lincoln Cathedral sailing its hill in massive pride. The futuristic super-yacht of Coventry, chained forever to the blackened wreck of its own shadow. St Davids in dry dock, hidden in its sunken hollow. Ships, all of them ships of stone, some moored in tightly provisioned ports, others out in the open in full sail, with ribbed interiors as tall as upturned battleships, with turrets and crows nests, orlops and bilges, galleys and engine rooms, shanties and slang and superstitions, and a jovial (and sometimes not so jovial) crew with all its complicated hierarchy of skills and duties, gripes and satisfactions.

There are over one hundred cathedrals in England, Scotland and Wales not just Anglican and Roman Catholic, but Greek Orthodox, Ukrainian Catholic, the Belarusian Autocephalous Orthodox Church, the Ancient and Old Catholic Church, and other even more more unorthodox denominations. As a travel writer Ive visited most of them. What striking buildings they are, and what a story lies behind their huge, apparently solid faades a narrative of bloody deeds, miracles, fanaticism, intrigue, ruin and rebirth.

Its a thrilling, ongoing soap opera of characters, from the monarchs who agreed their building and the grand lords and bishops who envisaged and ordered them, down to the peasant labourers who erected (and died on) the scaffolding, and the innkeepers and prostitutes, holy people and rogues who served and cheated the workers. The finagling and manoeuvring over where theyd be built, the towns that grew up in their shadows, the prosperity and pomp that followed them. The effects of the pilgrimages and the Black Death, the Reformation and the Civil War with its icon-smashing and desecration. The revival brought about by the Industrial Revolution, the hope and disillusion of two World Wars, and the uncertain future of these giant, fragile, irreplaceable national treasures.

Ships of Heaven is not an architectural or historical guidebook, or a gazetteer of Britains cathedrals. There are more than enough of those. Rather, its a voyage of discovery round a personal selection of cathedrals, some old favourites that Ive visited many times, others that Id never before set foot in.

Cathedrals are not just assemblages of dead stone shapes; they are lively organisms, in the same way that a ship is. Theres not much about ogee arches or liturgical niceties in these pages. Its those kinds of technicalities that have put me off cathedrals in the past. Little details attract me: Green Men peeping from the pillars, slabs of fossil stone in the masons yard, a cathedral cat snoring by a radiator.

Cathedrals are packed with stories ancient and modern: statues to the dead of forgotten battles, monuments to tiny children snatched away, windows that honour women who fought for their rights. The holy bones of saints, come to light during renovations. Beautiful treasures of glass and stonework, smashed by the pikestaves of religious bigots. The arrogance of puffed-up prelates. Murder and arson, slander and theft. In modern times, the bravery of the two Bishops of Liverpool who pushed back together against sectarian bigotry. The struggles of women to attain holy orders. Guilt and atonement in Coventry, then and now, for the horrors of war. The humility everywhere of simple souls.