Calm before the Xmas storm

 
This month Lichfield Cathedral will go all-out with the Christmas spirit: light-shows, displays, mass carol concerts, even fairs on the green.
So, slightly before all the madness, let's enjoy a pre-Christmas moment of quiet.

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It doesn't frighten me...

There's a very fine line, when it comes to monsters, between terrifying and plain silly.
This dragon figure on the east end of Lichfield Cathedral is a case in point.  Because some of the very old 'grotesques', as they're called, had crumbled away, the cathedral authorities decided to replace them a couple of years ago - but in a  "21st Century style".
However, frankly, this figure doesn't look so much like an ancient guardian, warding off evil spirits, as a character from a child's computer game.
In my humble opinion.

This post was featured on the My Town Shoot Out Photo Blog for its Halloween theme

No waggons, carts & cattle

There's a lot of the past in Staffordshire - perhaps too much.  Whether it's the industrial-past or the historic-past, it sometimes sticks around too long.

For example, the notice you see in this photo hangs prominently in Lichfield in the Cathedral Close, which leads up to the cathedral itself (you can see one of its spires in the background).
It says: "The road through the Close, not being a public thoroughfare, no waggons carts & cattle are allowed to pass through.  By order of the Dean & Chapter".

Now, is that a charming relic of a bygone age, or the dead hand of the past forcing itself upon the present?

Grey days at Lichfield

Only England can do such grey, sombre days as these. There is virtually no colour in the sky, buildings or water, and if it weren't for the evergreens, it would be one monochrome wash.

This photo shows Lichfield Cathedral in the distance, over Stowe Pool, which is the Victorian reservoir just outside the city centre.

Medieval artists have a joke

Medieval artists could just as subversive (and as able to insert humour in serious places) as the artists of today.
I say this because, in my previous two posts, I have been writing about a jokey art project which has 'infiltrated' the Potteries Museum - but the long-ago artists who made the carvings in his photo seem to have been of the same mindset!

These carvings - in the chapter house of Lichfield Cathedral - are hundreds of years old, but display exactly the same impish humour.
Quite what the masons who made them were thinking - or what the story behind them is - I just don't know.

But it made me laugh out loud in what is, really, a very serious place!

Lichfield Festival goes stripey

Lichfield Festival is the major cultural festival in Staffordshire, taking place every year in July. Orchestras, authors, theatre troupes – they all turn up during the twelve days that the festival is on.

This year, the theme across the city was ‘coloured stripes’. I have no idea why. However, outside the cathedral, this open-air installation – created by local school-children – took up the theme.

Tomorrow is the last day of the festival.

Military in church

In Lichfield, there is a whole chapel in the cathedral dedicated to the military. Former soldiers are buried here, or there are sad memorials remembering officers who died in faraway places maintaining the Empire.
But there are also these banners - carried into battle, which act as reminders of great conflicts of the past, and sacrifice - mostly from the Staffordshire Regiment (and its various antecedents).

I don't mind the tombs; of course not. But I am uneasy about these banners, being laid down in what should be a place promoting peace, displayed here. Yes, they are 'holy', having been blessed, but there's something wrong about it to my mind. Why can't they be transferred to the nearby regimental museum?