Sept 2012: Where the first Christian Martyr lies buried

So I am riding in St. Albans

And here’s the cathedral

Pretty awesome, eh?



It is a strange looking building, long, low and squashed.

I wheel the bike down the left hand side

Looking up at the rather strange mishmash of architectural styles and building work

The difference in windows gave me pause for reflection. How strange.



Some of the windows are delicately carved, much more modern. The ones on the right are more Gothic in nature

A lovely lovely tree, looks like its made by a green spider..



That is one lovely looking door

And then somebody went and built this monstrosity next to it. You know you don't HAVE to bugger around with stuff?

This part is the strangest, you can see four different building styles and materials.

See the close-up?

I move along

It really looks crappy

Here we are, along the nave



Quite an interesting sight

The church has had presence here since 209AD (or thereabouts). Those cloisters in white date back to the 10th century

Looking down the buttresses.

That is the gate house, more on that in the next essay

I was so excited to see the ice-cream van but there was nobody there

Looking back at the cathedral

The entrance has three doors…

Some of the work is pretty good

But some of the work are repairs and that too not done very well.

Good stonework



Here is the main door



Curious, the left hand side looks like queen Elizabeth, but why does she have a moustache and why is the right hand side face drooling?



the etched glass is done very crudely, not impressed at all

Anti pigeon netting surrounds some of the alcoves

the But doesn't help

Another chap with angel wings, presumably its one of the benefactors?



An eagle and what looks like a horse…









More stone faces




I roll the bike forward to the corner

And look back

Looking up at the bell tower

Ancient burial grounds, these..

This was an interesting structure, with a sunken lawn.

As it so happens, each stone slab is actually a memorial to somebody, quite interesting.

I’ve never seen a structure like this before

Moving up….

Close-up of the tower, its not really good looking tower…

Very very blunt work

Stained glass windows

Lead windows

This is better…

Moving up beyond the nave to the top of the church

Then I started on my way back 

Looking back at the cathedral…

And riding past the cathedral, it really looks like a mongrel of a building.


Heading down to the bottom…check out the history of this building here. It never really had a good innings, pretty much was banged up most of its life over the past 1800 years, had horrible repairs done and its still not fixed. poor thing.