A Visit to Ely Cathedral
Ely Cathedral has been on my list of places to visit since I first discovered and began reading Elizabeth Goudge books several years ago. Goudge lived in Ely from 1911-1923, and I heard that the city is lovely and the cathedral magnificent. Last month I had a three-day stopover in Cambridge and was so pleased to see that Ely was not far away. I arrived in the afternoon after spending a mostly sleepless night on a plane, but the beauty of the spring day and the excitement of being back in England carried me through and gave me the energy I needed to make it through until bedtime. After spending three years living in England, coming here always feels like returning home.
I began walking toward the cathedral, but I didn’t make it very far before I saw the familiar bright green Oxfam sign. I was not disappointed because this particular location possessed a large book section. Next I visited Topping & Company Booksellers. Their store is lovely with gorgeous wooden staircases and a packed Literary Travel shelf that I could have perused for hours. I bought a new copy of an Elizabeth Goudge I didn’t own, The Middle Window, in honor of visiting what I thought of as “her” city. I popped into a few other charity shops before feeling the jet lag hitting me. It was time for coffee and cake. Or, more accurately, coffee and a Hot Cross Bun.
Properly refueled, I continued my walk to the cathedral. In preparation for my Ely visit I read Elizabeth Goudge’s book The Dean’s Watch* set in a fictionalized Ely. Many of the different gates into the cathedral grounds are referenced in that book, and I enjoyed spying those as I walked. In The Dean’s Watch many characters are afraid to go inside the cathedral, intimidated by its great size, but I find English cathedrals to be some of the most light-filled and inviting. I was first struck by the windows of the chapel and how you can see the light going through from front to back from the outside.
The exterior of the cathedral is impressive, but the inside is where the beauty really dazzles. The colors in the stained-glass and the pictures and designs on the nave ceiling are gorgeous. If you are familiar with Old Testament prophecies about Jesus’s birth, you might get a special thrill from looking up and tracing out the names of the Old Testament prophets and the stories the pictures represent. These are additions from a restoration carried out in Victorian times, and they are incredible works of art. The cathedral is also known for its octagon tower, considered a wonder of the medieval world according to the cathedral’s website. The rich jewel-like colors are stunning.
I left Ely Cathedral with such a sense of awe. Years ago, a friend in France was the first to explain to me the importance of all the statues and paintings inside cathedrals—in a largely illiterate society, the pictures were the main avenue of telling the stories of the Bible. If cathedrals are meant to tell stories of the grandeur and glory of God, Ely Cathedral fulfills that purpose beautifully. For more pictures from inside the cathedral, visit the Cambridgeshire Picture Gallery.
* I use affiliate links to Bookshop.org.