The Uniqueness of Ely Cathedral

There are cathedrals and cathedrals, across many European countries, but the Cathedrals of Ely is a very singular case.

Here are the reasons:

1. The church is out of proportion for size and prestige to the (little) town where it is located
2. The edifice is built on marshlands
3. The legend of Etheldreda, the saint to whom the place of worship was first dedicated, is without parallel
4. The construction has a unique feature: the Octagon Tower

Today the town of Ely in Cambridgeshire, England, has a population of just over 20,000 people, so it is still a small settlement. Ely was never bigger than any of the market towns in its region and much smaller than some, like Bury St Edmunds and Norwich. Only the evident wealth of the original monastery (the Benedictine abbey) and the spirit and determination of the many local churchmen can explain why such a great building can dwarf such a small township. Richard John King writes in the Ely Cathedral Chapter of “The Handbook to the Cathedrals of England” (1862):

“Other English cathedrals form only part of the cities in which they stand: here the cathedral [Ely] is in fact the town”[1]

Ely Cathedral is a very, very large church. Some say the nave is the longest in the UK, some say it is the third longest, or the fourth longest in Britain[2], but here are no disputes about Ely Cathedral being a massive and outsized place of worship.

The marshland of the coastal plain in Eastern England, where Ely sits, is also called “The Fens”. It is a wind-beaten, low-level grassland prairie very rich in water and natural humidity – so not the best foundation ground for great and tall constructions.

“On 23 November of that year [1774], Church of England cleric and Christian theologician John Wesley, wrote of his approach to Ely after visiting Norwich: "about eight, Wednesday, 23, Mr. Dancer met me with a chaise [carriage] and carried me to Ely. Oh, what want of common sense! Water covered the high road for a mile and a half. I asked, 'How must foot-people come to the town?' 'Why, they must wade through!'" [3]

Through the years, the “Fens” areas of this part of England were partly drained and recovered for agriculture and construction through a complex system of dykes and channels. Ely Cathedral is often referred as the “Ship of the Fens”, a poetical and religious expression referring to the naves (from the Latin “navis”, vessel) of churches.

The legend of St Etheldreda has many versions. In all its variations, the legend is a pious tale of a devout recently-converted lady staying celibate through two different marriages and eventually fleeing to Ely to escape a second and seriously unhappy younger husband (Egfrid of Northumbria). The presence of Etheldreda in Ely eventually led to the founding of a monastery, blessed by her protector and confessor, St Wilfrid, Bishop of York[4]. The supposed year of death of Abbess St Etheldreda is 679, so this is a religious and historically relevant episode of the early, “dark” middle ages. The double (men and women, in separate quarters) monastery was eventually destroyed in a Viking invasion in 870[5]. In 970 Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, founded a Benedictine Abbey on the site of the old monastery. With this act, the religious importance and significance of this little place in the “Fens” was re-established, never to be eclipsed.

 “The famous Octagon Tower, sometimes referred as The Lantern, is a wonder of the mediaeval world and globally recognised as masterpiece of engineering”, one can read on the (British) Eastern Cathedral website. [6] For once, this claim from a tourist promotion website is amply justified.

 

This “most beautiful and original design to be found in the whole range of Gothic architecture”[7] was born out of a disaster, the fall on 12 February 1321 of the Central Tower erected by the Abbot Simeon at the end of the 11^th century as part of the first building of the cathedral on the site of the old Benedictine monastery. What the sacristan Alan De Walsingham (and maybe master mason John Atte Greene) did after clearing the was not a simple repair project, but a complete re-design of the central part of the church: the base of the tower was greatly enlarged, in search of firmer foundation, the placing of eight massive stone columns  as the corners of an octagon, the building of an octagonal timber tower (the lantern) at the level of the roof, with a domed shell roof. [8]

The building of the Octagonal Tower/Lantern was completed in 1342, so more than 20 years passed from the fall of the Central Tower to the full realization of the project of Alan De Walsingham and John Atee Greene. The incredible challenge presented by the stonework for the columns of the tower and the timberwork of the oak posts of the lantern (each weighing 10.2 tons!) would have stretched the brain of modern engineers, never mind the minds of medieval lay artisans, stonemasons, carpenters. Still, they were more than equal to the challenge and fully passed the test of time.

 

A final personal note: I chose Ely Cathedral because I had been there one or twice during my life in England, but I did not really know anything about it. I consider myself blindly lucky to have chosen this particular cathedral as I discovered that it is a unique and fascinating building.