Ha! Great film!
I've been carrying my ironwood for the past week as I rarely do for some reason, but also because everything else I put in storage as I went away to Winchester for a bit. The reason was to visit Winchester Cathedral and also the Winchester beer festival, which as it turned out, was the last beer festival of the year so far.
Winchester Cathedral (The church of the Holy Trinity, St' Peter and St' Paul) is a Norman Gothic cathedral located in Winchester in the county of Hampshire in south west England. There's been a church on this site since AD645 but the present church was begun by the Norman Bishop Walkelin in 1079 to replace the earlier Anglo-Saxon cathedral. It was completed within 20 years but was then altered and refined over the following 500 years. It's one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in the world and the longest in Britain.
The 13th century East End.
The Transepts, Tower and Crypt are all that remains of the Norman. Here you can see the classic Norman (Romanesque) arches and pillar in one of the Transepts.
And along the Triforium (the middle level) the reused Roman pillars.
In comparison to the later 14th (Perpendicular) Nave.
(oh that's a poor picture of a lambsfoot isn't it
).
Within the Nave is the original Norman Font made from Tournai marble (from modern day Belgium) and gifted to the cathedral from Bishop Henry of Blois, William the Conqueror's grandson and brother of King Stephen in the 12th century. Many of our kings and their heirs were baptised in this font.
It originally sat by the Norman west end but when that was demolished in the 1300's and the Nave shortened by about 70 feet they moved it to it's current position in the arcades of north aisle. And in over 700 years they've never got round to moving it back.
Looking up to the roof of the crossing you'll see the vaulted ceiling is made from wood. This was because in 1107 the original tower collapsed. It was blamed on the burial of William II (William the Conquerors son) who was a bit of a nasty sod and who was probably assassinated by his brother in 1100. It was more likely because most of the cathedral is built on a flood plain and so when rebuilt it was built in wood to alleviate weight.
Looking along the Quire towards the Sanctuary and the Great West Screen, considered to be one of the finest of the age.
This is Norman but the figures you see are later replacements, the originals smashed in 1642 during our civil war.
Now Winchester is the traditional burial place of the Anglo-Saxon kings of England. Along each side of the Sanctuary are Mortuary Chests placed in their current position in 1520. They contain the bones of the Kings Cenwealh, Althelred, Cnut, Emma (the queen of both those kings) Hathacanute and the Norman king William II. In 1642 the Parliamentarians stormed the cathedral, pulled the chests down and scattered the bones. There is a project by a team from Bristol University to DNA test and carbon date the bones to sort them all out and they have already identified the remains of Queen Emma.
Behind the screen in the retrochoir is the site of St' Swithin's shrine. St' Swithin was a 9th century Anglo-Saxon Bishop of Winchester who was elevated to sainthood and which the last Anglo-Saxon cathedral was dedicated to. Contrary to popular belief William the Conqueror didn't completely suppress the Anglo-Saxon saints. The Normans were often happy to let the Anglo-Saxons continue with their saints.
The shrine, like virtually all shrines in England no longer exists. Destroyed during the Reformation on the orders of Henry VIII.
So I'll end on a modern story. Late in the 19th century it was discovered that the east end of the Retrochoir was in danger of collapse. When they investigated they found that when it was constructed in the 13th century it was built on a peat bog (the flood plain of the River Itchen). What they had done was constructed a raft of beech trees which they then used as foundations. It was found that after 600 odd years these beech logs had rotted away.
The solution they came up with was to excavate down, remove the peat, and replace with concrete.
This bust is of William Walker, a diver who for 5 years between 1906 and 1911 worked (usually single handed) in absolute darkness under the wall of the cathedral cutting away the peat and replacing it with bags of cement.
Here's his Wiki page which tells it better than I can.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(diver)
If you look closely on this photo you can see the sag in the external south wall of the Retrochoir. Well 'Diver Bill' is the one who stopped that turning into a catastrophic collapse.
Just a few more. Looking towards the west end. The great west window was smashed in 1642.
The roof space above the vault of the Nave. Hundreds of oak trees were used. They story was Bishop Walkelin approached William II and asked him for some oak trees from the royal forest. William II sneered at him and replied you can have as many trees as can be cut down in a single day. So the bishop got every monk, nun, layman and townsman in Winchester into the forest and between sunrise and sunset they felled the entire forest of oak trees. When William II found out he went nuts but Walkelin placated him by planting 'The New Forest', which even today is I think the largest forest in Britain.
Any the bell chamber.
Well I hope you've enjoyed my little tour; I did it mainly cos I think like me many of us are stuck at home, or at least can't do anything more exciting than walk round the block.
I can do a little more of Winchester if you want.
Oh I better put some more lambsfoot content in this hadn't I.
You'd love it at York Viking Festival! I could hold your cloak! 
I think veterans have been treated even worse since 
