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The Wonders of Cathedral Construction and
Ornamentation:
Next time you’re in the Cathedral tower (the Central Tower, that is), take a
look out the west windows at the shields that are on the two West Towers just
below the louvers. If you look carefully, you’ll see that both towers have the
same 4 shields, but arranged in different orders.
Were you able to fly around the towers (shades of Harry Potter, perhaps, or more
likely, one of our pigeons), you’d be able to see that these same 4 shields are
on all sides of both towers, but in different order on every side. Although I’ve
not been able to do the fly-by, so can’t verify this from personal observation,
the shields are arranged as if they were the changes to Plain Hunt Minimus.
Rounds is on the front of the Cathedral, on the west side of the South Tower.
The changes continue counter-clockwise around the South Tower, then onto the
west side of the North Tower and counter-clockwise around it, ending with the
last change before Rounds (1324) on the north side of the North Tower.
Below is a diagram showing the placement of the 4 shields if they could all be
seen from the Central Tower. Remember, if you were standing at the West End,
you’d actually see the shields in reverse order to what is shown, hence “4321”
would be seen as “1234” when read from left to right. |
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The Shields
(click image for location) |
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The
Layout |
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Canon Richard T. Feller documented this installation in a memorandum to Rick
Dirksen on July 12, 1985:
The content of this memorandum is not of earth-shaking or momentous importance
in the life of the cathedral but, nevertheless, is something I think should be
recorded for posterity.
In January of 1984, I asked you for a series of change ringing based on four
bells or four numbers. You very kindly did so.
At the level of the towers where we now are, there is a series of shields and in
order to save on carving expense we decided to use only four different types of
shield design. The designs had to be kept simple because of the height and there
was little reason for using a more extensive arrangement. With four shields on
each face, there is a total of 16 carvings on each tower.
I took your number sequence and applied our models as a, b, c, and d as you
would use them in change ringing. We used eight changes of sequence to match the
eight faces of the two towers. |
Background: In preparation for his move to Kentucky this summer (2010), Rick Dirksen
has been “clearing out”. While sorting the ringing papers he is turning over to
the Whitechapel Guild and to WRS, I came upon the memorandum from Canon Richard
T. Feller documenting this bit of Cathedral construction related to ringing.
Canon Feller was Clerk of the Works at the Cathedral from 1957 until 1991. As
such, he was chief administrator in charge of all construction and artwork for
the cathedral and oversaw all aspects of its design and construction in this
period.
/Quilla
images by Theresa Rice |
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