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Published: October 16th 2016
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Having heard about historic cathedral in St Albans, we decided to visit there on 3 October. Mark took a day off on that day.
St Albans is 19 miles (31km) northwest of London and is a large town within the London commuter belt. The Thameslink serves frequent services, both express and local, calling at major stations. We took the Thameslink service from St Pancras station – it was just 20 minutes journey to the destination.
After leaving the station and crossing over the railway bridge, we found Victoria Street which would lead to the town centre. We were going to pop in the tourist information centre, but the town hall’s building was which housed the tourist information centre was under the building work – and Mark found the tourist information centre has moved somewhere in the town. We had plans to visit Cathedral, Verulamium Park, Verulamium Museum, Roman Theatre and Roman Mosaics – we didn’t need the tourist information centre to find extra information.
As we turned left on the Market Square, we found the shopping district and the early 15
th century Clock Tower.
Signposts were well-marked – it
medieval ceiling
It contained the flags of Saint Albans, St Georges and House of Lancaster and York - red and white roses. The latter two commemorates the battle field of Wars of Roses. made is easy for us to find where we were. Following sign posts around the Clock Tower, we found the lane leading to the Cathedral.
It was lunch time where we arrived at the site of the Cathedral; so we had a picnic lunch on the parkland.
Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban The façade of the Cathedral and Abbey Church of Saint Alban was amazing; we took a number of photos from different angles.
We entered from the modern Chapter House, which housed restaurant, information desk, and gift shop and clock room, led to the South Transept
We found striking ceiling containing the red and the white roses represents the house of Lancaster and York respectively and fought each other in the battles of St Albans during the Wars of the Roses.
We went to the west front, at the start of nave, to look round the cathedral in a clockwise direction. We found information leaflets in various languages including Japanese. From the west front, we looked at Nave Screen, Quire and High Altar Screen: this
medieval wall painting
great survival at that time nave possesses one of the longest lengths in the UK at 276 feet (85 metres), and displays a wonderful mixture of architecture styles which reflect its long and diverse history. And thanks to great restorers in the Victorian period, which described as below, this historic cathedral receives a huge number of visitors every year.
Like other medieval monasteries in the UK, St Alban Abbey suffered from Henry VIII’s reformation in the mid 16
th century: between 1539 and 1832 many of valuable manuscripts and relics of St Albans disappeared and the great church slowly declined into dilapidation and the nave fell into disuse. However, at the beginning of the 19
th century several people – Dr Henry Nicholson and Sir George Gilbert Scott – got interest in restoring the medieval building and monuments, and the massive building work carried through the mid 19
th century. The mighty medieval church was finally restored in 1877, and became the cathedral for the new diocese of St Albans.
The nave has been used for the place of worship for a long time. As well as the Sunday
services, large diocesan services, choral concerts and graduation ceremonies of the University of Hertfordshire are held in this spectacular nave.
One of the outstanding features of this cathedral is medieval wall painting shown on the north side’s pillars. These showed depictions of St Christopher and St Thomas Becket and other saint characters. They were limewashed at the Dissolution but rediscovered in 1862. Despite its history, details and lines of these characters were quite clear – I could see these pictures were used for the prayers in the medieval time.
Exhibition Area housed collections of silver items, survived relics of the medieval abbey – decorations on the fringes, arched doors and walls – and a working reconstruction of Abbot Richard of Wallingford’s astronomical clock.
We walked past Watching Chamber and Lady Chapel, and popped in the little room where St Albans’s shrine was displayed. While just small numbers of medieval shrine pedestals remained, this cathedral is fortunate to have two of them – built for St Albans and St Amphibalus. We also found the tomb of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester – brother of King Henry V.
We bought a
guide book and walked through the south side’s nave. We found choir practising around the nave screen.
The West Front showed striking Gothic architectural decorations and ornate carvings, which illustrated the history of St Alban and continuous Christian worship place – we felt this stunning appearance is making residents feel very special.
We found a historic gate, Abbey Gateway, and St Albans School. Young people were wearing smart-looking uniforms. We walked down on the Abbey Mill Lane and found a historic pub, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks Inn, and the River Ver. The footpath led us to Verulamium Park and the lake. We decided to take the left side footpath towards the Verulamium Museum. There were a couple of Roman walls on the hill of the park. It is said that Alban, the first British Martyr, lived in the Roman city of Verulamium during the 3
rd century, and the walls were parts of the Verulamium community at that time. There were a wide variety of waterfowls swimming in the lake and standing on the banks in a sunny afternoon.
Verulamium Museum and Roman Theatre, Verulamium Museum
This is the old building and modern building has been connected to this building. Hypocaust
Following the footpath, we found the Verulamium Museum. Mark remembered visiting St Albans with his parents in the past, but didn’t remember the museum. The museum’s entrance was located in the modern-looking building, and this one connected to the brick-building standing on the main road – the joint building housed a huge variety of collections, which have been excavated over the period of the time. We decided to go to the Roman Theatre; Mark paid for the joint tickets for Verulamium Museum and Roman Theatre.
With the evidence of an Iron Age settlement known as Verulamium in the 3
rd century, St Albans possessed a wealth of archaeological collections – copper and bronze vessels, surgical items, cutlery, coins, armoury goods, accessories both for personal use and ritual ceremonies, decorations on the columns and fridges, busts – dating from that period – and they were displayed in the categorised orders – domestic life, leisure, trading like goldsmith’s workshops, hunting, ritual ceremonies, communal baths and treasures. The exhibitions rooms had modern facilities like touch screens or video presentations. We were amazed to see superb mosaics and re-created Roman rooms, which gave us good insight of
life in the Roman city.
We went to the Roman Theatre off Hemel Hempstead Road. We walked around an amphitheatre – we could see where the stage, the changing room, the arena and the circular viewing areas from the footpath overlooking the amphitheatre. We also looked round the former residential areas and the shopping district.
We went back to the Verulamium Park, and stopped at Roman Mosaics – Hypocaust, which was housed in a brand new building. We could see the Roman style heating system shown on the sunken ground.
We walked along the lake and following the footpath to the Cathedral. We had a cup of tea and a cake at the café near the cathedral.
Afterwards, we went back to the station and took the train back home.
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