The west window at Winchester Cathedral is unlike anything I’d seen in such an old structure.
Well that’s not quite true as the Eton College Chapel, built in the 15th century, has modern stained glass by my cousin, Evie Hone, and John Piper. The original glass was destroyed in the war. A small but interesting digression: when Winchester Cathedral was built it was the largest structure north of the Alps.
To get back on track, the west window, Winchester, was also destroyed in a war, namely the Civil War in the 17th century. The Parliamentarians captured Winchester and desecrated the cathedral, stabling their horses within and blowing out the windows for musket practice. The outraged citizens collected the glass fragments and made a random mosaic of the pieces which is what you see today.
The purpose of our visit to Winchester on Wednesday was to see an Eric Ravilious exhibition (very good) and have lunch. There is no shortage of restaurants in the city. We chose the oldest, the Chesil Rectory, built in 1450 as part of St Mary’s Abbey. As part of Henry VIII’s programme of de-Catholickising England he gave it to his daughter, Mary Tudor. Her connection was that in 1554 she married Philip II of Spain in the cathedral. Even in those days weddings, at least royal ones, were ruinously expensive and the city had to pick up the tab. By way of recompense Mary left the rectory to the city. It has been a restaurant for the last eighty-five years and we had an excellent lunch: garlic, leek and potato soup, kedgeree and rhubarb jelly. The kedgeree not as good as the Parsons Green variant.
Had I known you were going to visit Winchester cathedral I would have drawn your attention to the memorial in the north of the nave to my great great uncle, Colonel Boyd Alexander of the Rifle Brigade and his son Lieutenant Boyd Alexander, also of the Rifle Brigade “who was killed whilst exploring in central Africa 3 April 1910.”
He was the author of “From the Niger to the Nile” (1907) and wrongly assumed the natives would not kill him as he was a white man.
Not my only connection with Winchester- I was born there.
Synchronicity again. Not a fortnight ago I was in Wells Cathedral and was bowled over by the remnants of medieval glass windows that were rescued by locals and enlightened Deans (after, for instance, Cromwell’s depredations), were reconstituted as mosaics and re-installed. I think the rescuers liked the general effect of the light and colours. To our modern eye they look presciently modernist.