Crookedy

So I thought for a change I'd come in from the outside despite the fantabulous weather. I had to wait around in town for a doctor's appointment this morning and because, as you know, I have a real fondness for church architecture - particularly the crookedy kind - I caught up with this quiet corner of Winchester Cathedral: lovely plain glass, splashes of sunlight on the pillars and all the geometry ridiculously out of kilter.

Well, if it is crookedy it's hardly surprising - the longest nave in Europe and goodness knows how many thousands of tons of stone built - basically - in a bog and what can you expect? By the beginning of the 20th century there were cracks in the side walls so wide a child could climb through and the whole east end was sinking where its wood and peat foundations had rotted. Luckily repairs started just before WW1 broke out - if they'd left it till after the whole thing would have come tumbling down. Instead a lovely man called William Walker donned an old brass diving suit and spent 7 years underneath the walls replacing the timber with bags of concrete. I think he died not long after the end of the war in the Spanish flu epidemic. 1918?

If you go round to the south side of the cathedral and look along to the east end, you can still see how the whole cathedral starts to lean downward at that point - quite weird how it still manages to remain with us!