CATHEDRAL' CITIES

Taranaki Daily News, 1 August 1931, Page 1 (Supplement)

CATHEDRAL' CITIES

LINCOLN UPON ITS HILL

(By ‘

“Senex.”)

For the New Zealander who visits England.for the first time there is no limit whatsoever to the wonders he will find, from the great city and seaport of London, the business and social centre of all the world, to the quiet hamlets and peaceful countryside. In. the one there is sufficient interest to occupy every day of a year, in the other a quiet; beauty that never loses its grip.

Between the’ two there is a type of city that can never be in New Zealand, the cathedral city. We may build our cathedrals on the graceful Gothic models of England, but the world moves so much faster now. There can never be all the repose and meditation of a thousand years in buildings that grow with aeroplanes whirring overhead. There is a peace, and quiet charm about the cathedral cities of England that is almost indescribable, and the deepest peace is about the cathedral and its' close.

Two of these .English cities may possibly appeal to a colonial far more than any others. They are Durham and Lincoln. Coming from a. country where the configuration of the land provides endless opportunities of obtaining wide vistas of mountain, or plain, or coast, he wearies of the comparative flatness of England. He longs for the more rugged outlines of a more mountainous country where hill and mountain break the long monotony of the skyline.' ■So Lincoln and Durham afford him an instant pleasurable shock when he first sees them, lonely and magnificent on their hill tops. And of the two, Lincoln is the more exciting tp the senses. The county of Lincolnshire is as flat as it possibly could be around the chief town of the ■shire. Approaching by train from the main London to Scotland line, one sees nothing but this interminable flatness extending away on either side as far as the eye can carry. Then away ahead in the distance a sudden hill breaks up out of the plain. There is just the slightest of haze over it to indicate the presence of houses ami humans. The topmost line of the hill is broken and jagged, but the speed of the train soon resolves those jutting pinnacles into the thro towers of Lincoln cathedral. The two western towers are the first part of the grey mass to greet- the traveller, leaning as far as he dare from his carriage window. Then, as the train swings around to enter the station the whole length of the great edifice from western front to eastern window is presented to him. He almost feels it might be wiser nul to leave the station, but to catch the next train away again in order to preserve clearly the first glorious glimpse vouchsafed him, and the leap of his heart 'that accompanied it. . ' / But a closer approach in no way lessens the first thrill of Lincoln. Busy with people, for it is market day, the narrow street leading “to the hill on which stands the cathedral is framed in the arch of a perfect gateway. It is the Newport Arch, or the gate of the old Roman town of Lindum, and it is one of the most perfect specimens of Roman architecture in England. In the wall 'beside the gate, through which the Roman legions once tramped, and through which hurried motorists now pass unthinking, is a smaller arched gate for those on foot. It is called the Needle’s Eye, and brings home, to one immediately the true significance of the Biblical parable concerning the camel and the eye of a needle. One soon comes to learn that in English towns the oldest streets are those near the cathedral or the parish church, around which in medieval days the whole life of the community was centred. So it is in Lincoln. The ancient British town naturally occupied the crown'of the hill, an admirable position for defensive purposes. In their occupation the Romans chose, of course, the same site for their colony. That is now the oldest part of the town, and is known to the citizens peculiarly enough as “above hill.” This part of Lincoln consists of narrow, irregular streets, some of which are too steep for carriages. It is up one of these abrupt streets that the way of, the pedestrian lies from the' town to the cathedral.. The street must have retained its present name for many centuries. It is called Steep Hill. There are no words “the” or “street” before or after the name, so that the address of, say. No. 6, is quite simply No. 6, Steep Hill, Lincoln. Steep Hill having been ascended, and a corner turned, all the simple, massive impressiveness of the western front of the cathedral, rising boldly up, almost takes one’s breath—-the great, arched doorway in the centre* flanked on either side by a .facade divided Wholly into empty niches for the figures of saints and kings, and surmounted by the two towers, rather severe in the plain ornamentation of their lower part, but relieved by the lighter grace of the later architecture in their upper storeys.

The church was consecrated in 1092, but its building took centuries, and it contains examples of almost every style of church architecture from the early Norman to the later periods of Gothic. Far away beyond the choir screen and organ, which practically hide it ‘ from one entering the western door, the great east window floods the roof and sides of the choir with a dim radiance. The window, divided into eight high, narrow panels, fills the whole of the eastern end of the cathedral, and is equalled in the beauty of its colouring only by the rose window in the north transept, containing delicately-hued glass of the >samfe period as the transept. This rose-window is- Called the Dean’s Eye, and its counterpart in the south transept bears the name of the Bishop’s Eye. The great central tower rising from the cross formed by the name and the transepts contains the bell Great Tom of Lincoln, weighing over five tons. < The width of the long nave tends -slightly to reduce the effect of its tremendous height, but the eye, running so easily up the pillars which spread, fanwise to support the roof, conveys to the dnlookcr just a little of what must have been the depth of religions'feeling in the men of medieval times who could conceive such a noble structure for their faith wh'en for themselves their dwellings were so lowly. A hurried, inspection of a building so teeming with interest is worse than nothing. One prefers to leave with only the memory of the vast nave- and the thoughts it inspired, and, as one departs from the town, with a second memoryrefreshing glimpse of the whole stately pile, lone a,nd aloof, apart from all worldly cares, upon its hill.