Image: Salisbury Cathedral, by Antony McCallum, WyrdLight.com/Wikimedia Commons
For the first time since the 1980s, Englannd’s Salisbury Cathedral is on full view to the public, with the removal of the last of the scaffolding that has covered large portions of the 13th-century church for over 37 years.
The spire, which is England’s tallest, was the initial focus of the work, with masons tasked with replacing seriously eroded stones. Other restoration work was added over the years of the work.
With the work completed, light again streams into the building through its stained glass and other windows, including its famous Prisoners of Conscience window. Among the other treasures and attractions of the cathedral are one of only four surviving original copies, from 1215, of Magna Carta.
During the renovation, workers found numbers of more recent objects of interest, relics of previous work on the church, including oyster shells that were used to fill gaps in the brick after the oysters were eaten, Victorian grafitti and a carving of a World War II Spitfire fighter plane, possibly a reference to a secret wartime plant that built them in Salisbury.
Salisbury Cathedral from the Bishop’s Grounds by John Constable, 1831
