Winchester Cathedral
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Thursday 25 November 2021
(1.15pm for 1.30pm - meet inside west door) - Leader: John McNeill
Winchester boasted the wealthiest bishopric in England – surpassing even that of Canterbury – and came to possess the largest medieval cathedral. This afternoon visit is an opportunity to explore that building in a relatively leisurely manner, beginning with the earliest Norman work surviving in the crypt and transepts, and developing through the early Gothic retrochoir, late-thirteenth-century presbytery and nave as remodelled in the lifetime of Bishop William of Wykeham (1366-1404). The subsequent addition of the greatest of English Perpendicular reredos screens behind the high altar, and the re-internment of those Anglo-Saxon kings and queens – previously buried elsewhere in Winchester – in new tomb chests transformed the presbytery in what proved to be the last major remodelling of the cathedral interior.
Within that frame, there is much to see – the remarkable Tournai marble font imported by Bishop Henry of Blois in the middle of the twelfth century, the painted chapel of the angels, the Rayonnant choir stalls and the stunning suite of chantry chapels created by and for Winchester’s late medieval bishops.
NB Winchester Christmas Market will be open in the Cathedral grounds (about 1 minute away)
Leader
John McNeill is an architectural historian. He took degrees in art history at the University of East Anglia and Courtauld Institute, and went on to specialise in medieval architectural history, lecturing at Camberwell School of Art, London University’s Extra-Mural department, Birkbeck College and the Oxford University Department of Continuing Education. He lectures regularly to the Society and leads tours for Martin Randall Travel. He was appointed Secretary of the British Archaeological Association in 2000, for whom he also subsequently convened and edited conferences on Medieval Anjou, cloisters, medieval chantries, and King’s Lynn and the Fens. He founded the BAA’s biennial series of International Conferences on Romanesque, and is both a member of its steering committee and a co-editor of its transactions. His most recent effort in this field, Romanesque and the Year 1000 is due to be published at the end of 2024. Besides the BAA Conference Transactions, John has published numerous articles and is author of the Blue Guides to both Normandy and the Loire Valley. He is a Vice-President of the London Art History Society and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
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