Cathedral Ceilings Campaign – Milestone Reached

Drum roll please … THANK YOU! We’ve reached 500,000.

Over half a million of you have engaged with our Summer Cathedral Ceilings campaign #AlwaysLookUp and we’re only halfway through!

See all the ceilings by clicking here.

The campaign, which shares an image every day from each of our cathedrals, was launched to remind visitors and worshippers to lift up their eyes and see what they might discover when they next encounter one of our cathedrals.

Thank you to every one of you who has joined us and gazed upon these soaring arches, incredible vaulting, ancient stones, unique carvings, paintings and intricate detail.

We’re incredibly grateful to cathedral heritage expert, Janet Gough MBE who has written us a very special piece to mark this campaign.

Thank you to everyone who has engaged – keep watching the space!

Janet Gough on Cathedral ceilings, #AlwaysLookUp – the Association of English Cathedrals’ summer 2024 campaign.

At Bradford Cathedral you can see music-making by gilded, painted angels supporting the roof beams, many playing musical instruments from the Bible.

Carlisle’s gorgeously painted blue and starry ceiling with supporting angels gives us a glimpse of heaven on earth. There’s another starry sky above the tomb of King Richard III, who was buried with full pomp at Leicester Cathedral in 2015 after his remains were discovered in a carpark nearby. And I love the blues in the mid 20th century Lady Chapel at Guildford Cathedral. Lady Prudence Maufe, wife of the cathedral designer-architect, Sir Edward Maufe, and herself a director of Heals of London, designed the ceiling of the Lady Chapel – and was a trail blazer for women in cathedral design.

At Chichester the ceiling of the Lady Chapel is delicately painted in pale greens and browns with curling tendrils of leaves and flowers, bringing the outside in. Painted by British Renaissance artist Lambert Barnard (1485-1567) this ceiling painting narrowly escaped obliteration in a 19th century restoration – saved by stacked bookcases then housed in the chapel.

Peterborough Cathedral nave boasts Europe’s largest surviving painted medieval ceiling (c1250). Made-up of 57 lozenges of saints and kings and weirder things, I particularly love the Seven Liberal Arts including the figure of Geometry, who reads like a latter-day architect.

And of course, don’t forget to marvel at the incredible architecture of our cathedral ceilings. These include the 13th century ‘crazy vault’ or asymmetrical vaulting above St Hugh’s choir at Lincoln Cathedral and the extraordinary decorated tierceron-vaulted ceiling that runs the full length from east to west of Exeter Cathedral. Look up too at the smaller scale but exquisite fan vaulted Stanbury Chapel (c 1475) in the north choir aisle of Hereford Cathedral and the gravity-defying pendant vaulted ceiling at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford.

Around 1700, Sir Christopher Wren raised England’s first substantial dome over his new St Paul’s Cathedral. Wren drew inspiration from the classical domes of Brunelleschi’s Florence cathedral and Michelangelo’s St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and also from Ely Cathedral’s great octagonal tower and Lantern of 1322. St Paul’s dome uses gothic building techniques including a conical or spire-like structure to hold up a second external and classically-articulated dome, still visible from far and wide.

Recently, I looked up at the ceiling of Sir Basil Spence’s Coventry Cathedral – built in just six years after the earlier cathedral was destroyed by bombing in the Second World War. Coventry’s crisscrossed canopy ceiling pays homage to gothic vaulting, while being all of a piece with this dramatic post-war modern building.

Most of all, I enjoyed visiting Norwich Cathedral one recent summer’s day, after they installed a helter skelter in the nave to attract new – and younger – visitors. Children were also enjoying lying on yoga mats at the other end of the nave and looking up at 400 extraordinary painted 15th century bosses that tell the story of Creation to the Last Judgement across the whole nave roof of Norwich Cathedral.

Cathedral ceilings – always look up!

Canon Janet Gough OBE, is the author of two perfect guides for summer visits to cathedrals.

Deans’ Choice, Cathedral Treasures of England and Wales

Cathedrals of the Church of England – Director’s Choice

Both of which can be ordered from: https://www.cpo.org.uk/books/cathedral-treasures-shop.html

Janet was the director of cathedrals and church buildings at the Church of England and was awarded an OBE for services to heritage in the New Year’s Honours 2017.

She graciously allowed us to use her most recent book Deans’ Choice Cathedral Treasures of England and Wales for our 50 Treasures 50 Days Cathedral Treasures Campaign which ran winter 2022/23 and showcased 50 extraordinary treasures from the cathedrals of the Church of England and the Church in Wales.