Old Cathedral and Church of St Michael

Welcome to our forum, farmerjohn, and.... WOW, that really brings the old St. Michael's to life, and gives us a taste of how previous generations might have become awestruck in such a place.

Thanks Rob, appreciate it. I had a play with another image last night. It's interesting to see how the space worked when the nave and quire walls were intact.

Hi from me too farmerjohn Terrific pictures. The interior of the churches are as changed as the exteriors. In the earliest incarnations the decoration would have been very rich and colourful but there was probably no seating. Later there were multistorey seating decks along the side isles and lime washed walls. I wonder if there is a human gene responsible for the urge to redecorate?

Up for a brief while the Lady Chapel in a painting by Florence Weston here. Below this part of the Cathedral stood the crypt and charnel house. I think that it is suggested that this was once a separate chapel outside the castle wall, but I can't help feeling that it would have been too close to the castle and would have acted as a siege tower. As it was the Old cathedral was used as a defensive structure to attack the castle. Maybe the chapel was built at some intermediate point in time when the castle was being dismantled but St Michael's still wasn't a fraction of the grand footprint we know today? I must reread the section on it.