Life with Durham Cathedral: A Laboratory of Community, Experience and Building 9781800737808

Table of contents :
Contents
Figures
Introduction
Part I Life in Durham Cathedral
Chapter 1 Community?
Chapter 2 ‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’
Chapter 3 Pilgrims and Tourists
Part II Experiencing Durham Cathedral
Chapter 4 The Sound of Durham Cathedral
Chapter 5 The Light of Durham Cathedral
Chapter 6 Space and Time in Durham Cathedral
Part III The Living Cathedral
Chapter 7 Building
Chapter 8 Dwelling
Chapter 9 Changing
Coda
Postscript
References
Index

Citation preview

Life with Durham Cathedral

Life with Durham Cathedral A Laboratory of Community, Experience and Building

Arran J. Calvert

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

First published in 2023 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2023 Arran J. Calvert

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Calvert, Arran J., author. Title: Life with Durham Cathedral : a laboratory of community, experience and building / Arran J. Calvert. Description: [New York] : Berghahn Books, 2023. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2022036445 (print) | LCCN 2022036446 (ebook) | ISBN 9781800737600 (hardback) | ISBN 9781800737808 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Durham Cathedral. | Architecture and society--England--Durham. | Architecture--Human factors--England--Durham. | Durham (England)--Buildings, structures, etc. | Durham (England)--Social life and customs. Classification: LCC NA5471.D9 C35 2023 (print) | LCC NA5471.D9 (ebook) | DDC 726.609428/6--dc23/eng/20220824 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036445 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022036446 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-80073-760-0 hardback ISBN 978-1-80073-780-8 ebook https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800737600

When Dasein directs itself towards something and grasps it, it does not somehow first get out of an inner sphere in which it has been proximally encapsulated, but its primary kind of Being is such that it is always ‘outside’ alongside entities which it encounters and which belong to a world already discovered. —Martin Heidegger, Being and Time

Contents

List of Figures

viii

Introduction1 Part I.  Life in Durham Cathedral Chapter 1. Community?

23

Chapter 2. ‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’

39

Chapter 3. Pilgrims and Tourists

50

Part II.  Experiencing Durham Cathedral Chapter 4. The Sound of Durham Cathedral

63

Chapter 5. The Light of Durham Cathedral

84

Chapter 6. Space and Time in Durham Cathedral

98

Part III.  The Living Cathedral Chapter 7. Building

125

Chapter 8. Dwelling

140

Chapter 9. Changing

159

Coda173 Postscript186 References Index

188 197

Figures

Figure 0.1. The nave of Durham Cathedral looking east towards the Rose Window. © Arran J. Calvert. 3 Figure 4.1. Durham Cathedral from Palace Green. © Arran J. Calvert. 64 Figure 4.2. The quire. © Arran J. Calvert. 65 Figure 4.3. View from the quire stalls looking out into the nave. © Arran J. Calvert. 75 Figure 5.1. The exterior lights of Durham Cathedral. © Arran J. Calvert. 86 Figure 5.2. Durham Cathedral illuminated from below, ­highlighting its tactile, shadowy surface. © Arran J. Calvert. 87 Figure 5.3. The illuminated undercroft after its refurbishment. © Arran J. Calvert. 92 Figure 6.1. Example of a fortnightly. Public domain. 100–101 Figure 6.2. The Galilee Chapel. © Arran J. Calvert. 108 Figure 7.1. Medieval stonework stored in the crypt. © Arran J. Calvert. 127 Figure 7.2. The Apprentice Column, a source of much discussion in Durham Cathedral. Is the change in the chevron pattern a third of the way up on the left-hand side intentional, to show that only God is perfect, as some believe, or is it an example of ad hoc building similar to that seen in the LEGO Cathedral? © Arran J. Calvert. 130 Figure 7.3. Changes being made to the LEGO Cathedral. © Arran J. Calvert. 136 Figure 7.4. The collapsed wall of the LEGO nave after changes were made. © Arran J. Calvert. 138 Figure 8.1. Nigel carving the latest in a long line of bishops. © Arran J. Calvert. 141 Figure 8.2. The long marble list has subsequently been extended in another ad hoc change to the building. © Arran J. Calvert. 142

Figures • ix

Figure 8.3. North triforium door showing a number of alterations. © Arran J. Calvert. 148 Figure 8.4. The undercroft in 1899. Photograph by S. Bolas and Co., printed in J. E. Bygate (1905). Public domain. 148 Figure 8.5. The undercroft restaurant after refurbishment. © Arran J. Calvert. 149 Figure 8.6. Heavily weathered stones surround freshly cut stone in the external walls of Durham Cathedral. © Arran J. Calvert.149

Introduction



Earliest Memories ‘Everybody remembers the first time they see Durham Cathedral’, explained a steward one quiet Sunday afternoon as we stood at the top of the nave, looking east towards the Rose Window. ‘I’m retired, and I remember the first time I came here as a nipper with the school, and I bet you remember too.’ The steward was right; I do remember my first visit to Durham Cathedral. I remember that I went there on a day trip with my primary school. I was seven, maybe even younger. I remember the building looming into view through the fog as we walked two by two up the steep cobbled bank onto Palace Green, entering through the North Door and being greeted by the familiar smell of an old church. I remember that the smell reminded me of our village church, St Mary’s. I remember being told the story of the ‘Daily Bread Window’, just next to the North Door. A bird’s-eye view of the Last Supper, it depicted Jesus and his disciples all sitting around the table, with just one head out of line: that of Judas Iscariot. I remember craning my neck up high to see the beautiful colours – purple, green and blue – thinking the heads looked like rows of cabbages. I remember looking at the ‘Durham Miners’ Memorial Book’, a book of remembrance for all the miners who had died in accidents in the mines of County Durham. One of the people looking after us children that day had the book opened on the page recording her father’s death in Horden Colliery, the mine in the village where my classmates and I lived and went to school. I was struck by the fact that something

2  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

that had happened in our community had been recorded within this building and was treated with such care that the names were locked in a glass case. What stands out most about that day is my sense of wonder, standing in the nave between impossibly tall stone columns that reached upwards to an incredibly high ceiling and feeling so small, hardly able to comprehend the building’s size in relation to my own. I have visited Durham Cathedral often, with either my family or school. My family and I are not religious people and I did not attend religious schools. However, the Cathedral occupies a prominent position in the minds of those who grow up and live in County Durham. It is considered to be ‘our cathedral’ by many, regardless of religious outlook, and is often a source of pride for local people. Having been born and grown up in County Durham, this is how I view Durham Cathedral: a familiar friend standing high upon its peninsula, welcoming you home as you return by train. During my fieldwork, I encountered many others who viewed the Cathedral in this same way, as an entity that offered them something, whether that be a place to sit and think, worship or meet with friends. One regular visitor to the Cathedral even had a favourite column in the nave, which she would hug every time she visited. Stepping into Durham Cathedral is a notable experience, during which the grandeur and age of the building become immediately apparent. Entering, you are greeted by people whispering and moving about, a sense of people trying to be quiet and a building continually reacting to the noises they make, amplifying them and sending them reverberating down the vast echo chamber that is the nave. According to Nikolaus Pevsner and Priscilla Metcalf, the character of Durham Cathedral has changed so little since its inception in 1093 that, after entering the Cathedral through the North Door and taking a seat ‘to abandon himself to his first impressions, [the visitor] can be certain that it is essentially at the design of the first great master that he is looking’ (1985: 81). The first dominating visual experience is the view down the full length of the nave towards the east and the massive Rose Window. Standing in the central aisle of the nave and looking towards the Rose Window brings home the majestic size of the building, allowing you to take in all of the 201 ft long, 39 ft wide and 73 ft high space at once. From this vantage point, the north and south transepts are not easily visible, nor is the empty space of the tower above the crossing, known as the lantern. You get the impression of a long tunnel lined with long wooden pews, all facing east. The central aisle is flanked by side aisles that seem to retreat from the bright stage lighting that delicately illuminates the central aisle. Above, the stone vaulted ceiling uniformly works its way down the nave, evenly interspersed with pointed transverse arches that bear the load of the ceiling ending with a rounded arch at the crossing.

Introduction • 3

Figure 0.1.  The nave of Durham Cathedral looking east towards the Rose Window. © Arran J. Calvert.

4  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

Over the years since that first visit, the building has continued to inspire wonder in me and, with time, I grew curious about the ways in which people live in a building that is over nine hundred years old, a building that has persistently endured so much change and has itself changed so much. One common phrase I heard during my fieldwork was that Durham Cathedral could be whatever you wanted it to be. This stuck with me. That a building so clearly devoted to Christian worship could be whatever you wanted it to be highlights the complex, multifaceted relationship between the building and those who use it, a dynamic relationship in which people do not simply live in Durham Cathedral but live with Durham Cathedral. Indeed, that is what this book is about: the many forms of engagement between the community and the Cathedral in daily life. I want to show that Durham Cathedral is not a background to life. It is not something in which life happens; rather, it is something with which life happens.

A Brief History of Durham Cathedral In showing that Durham Cathedral is not a backdrop to life, it is important to summarize some of the key moments in its history.  Many individuals have left their mark on the fabric of the building, on the stories people still tell about it and on the ways people relate to the building. Just as Igor Kopytoff’s ‘The Cultural Biography of Things’ (1986) argues that to understand the value of things, we must examine their biographies, Chris Gosden and Yvonne Marshall (1999: 170) highlight that taking a biographical approach to understanding things helps to reveal the meanings that have come to be invested in them. Arguing that meanings change and are renegotiated over the course of the life of things, Gosden and Marshall rightfully point out that ‘meaning emerges from social action and the purpose of an artefact biography is to illuminate that process’ (ibid.). While my intention in this book is to show how Durham Cathedral as it is known and experienced today emerges through social action and interaction, I do not intend to trace its biography, spanning eleven centuries, in detail. However, understanding the world in which the building emerged will set the scene for its development. The Bishop of Durham was described as having control over a territory that was independent from the Crown during the Middle Ages, called the Palatine of Durham. Some even used the term ‘Prince Bishop’ to describe him, though this term was not used in medieval times. The independence and privileges of Durham were at times tolerated by the Crown and, at other times, encouraged as Durham occupied a strategically important position between Scotland and England.

Introduction • 5

Set high on a peninsula, Durham Cathedral is surrounded on three sides by the River Wear – an excellent location from a strategic point of view. Indeed, in the 1817 poem Harold the Dauntless by the celebrated Scottish writer Walter Scott, Durham Cathedral is described as being ‘Half church of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot’. However, according to local oral history, defence is not the reason why the Cathedral was founded on this site. According to the chronicler Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de Exordio (written in the early twelfth century and translated by David Rollason; 2000), the monks from the See of Lindisfarne, established in ad 635 by St Aidan, had left the island of Lindisfarne in ad 875 out of fear of continuing Viking attacks. They took with them as much of their riches as they could carry, among the most important of which was the incorrupt body of St Cuthbert. They eventually established an episcopal see in Chester-le-Street from 882 until 995, when they left, again fearing Viking attacks. During their second period of wandering, the cart carrying St Cuthbert came to a halt in a place called Wrdelau and could not be moved. Taking the cart’s lack of movement as a sign of St Cuthbert’s unwillingness to return to Chester-le-Street, the monks undertook three days of fasting, prayers and vigils in the hope of a heavenly sign. They did receive a sign, telling them to take St Cuthbert to a place called Dunelm and prepare a resting place there. While the Libellus de Exordio does not describe how the monks found Dunelm, school children from Durham (such as I) are told the story of the lost monks encountering a milkmaid looking for her Dunn cow. The monks followed the milkmaid and found her cow on the peninsular hill of Dunelm in 995. Upon this peninsula, the monks again established the episcopal see, which had begun with St Aidan in Lindisfarne. They built a small wooden church that was later followed by a larger stone church known locally as the White Church. Finally, the construction of the current Cathedral began in 1093 with the laying of the foundation stone by the prior Turgot of Durham (later Bishop of St Andrews) and the Norman bishop William de St Calais. The previous bishop, William Walcher – who, in 1076, bought the position of Earl of Northumberland after the rebellion of the previous Earl Waltheof – was a Lotharingian; Lotheringia was a kingdom that emerged from the Carolingian Empire, located on what is today the northernmost border between France, Germany and western Switzerland. In 1071, Walcher became the first Norman appointed bishop to help subdue the local AngloSaxon population during a tense period following the 1069–70 ‘Harrying of the North’. The religious community at Durham Cathedral at the time was comprised of secular monks. As Symeon of Durham’s Libellus de Exordio explains, when Walcher ‘found clerks in that place he taught them to observe the custom of clerks in the day and night Offices’ (Symeon of Durham

6  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

2000: 106). Historical and archaeological records also suggest that Walcher may have intended to replace the secular community with a fully monastic one, with Symeon stating that Walcher began to build what he describes as a ‘monachorum habitacula’, or monk dwellings, adjoining the existing cathedral. Following the murder of Walcher – the result of a feud between a local aristocrat and two of Walcher’s henchmen – King William sent his halfbrother Odo, Bishop of Bayeux, with an army to harry the area again, in the course of which they laid waste to much of the region between York and Durham. As a replacement for the murdered Walcher, William de St Calais was appointed, becoming the first Norman Bishop of Durham. This was a political decision rather than a religious one. The new bishop needed to be a robust and capable leader in the dangerous and unstable north. At this time, the position of Bishop of Durham ‘cannot have been much coveted by any conventionally ambitious clergyman’ (Matthew 1994: 6). These two events – Walcher inviting the monks to the Cathedral and his murder – helped set clear boundaries ‘between the bishopric of Durham and the earldom of Northumbria’, the former being established between the rivers Tyne and Tees (Liddy 2008: 187). The origin story of Durham Cathedral and several other mythical and miraculous stories, drawing on the Old Testament’s ‘chosen people’, which were often described and perpetuated by Symeon, helped establish this territory as the rightful land of the people living there, ‘the people of the saint’, whose continuity was constructed on the basis of carrying Cuthbert’s body onwards. As Christian Drummond Liddy argues, ‘whatever St Cuthbert’s wider regional cult, it was at Durham that the body of Cuthbert came to rest, and it was with the land between Tyne and Tees that he was most closely connected. It was here that the “people of the saint” lived’ (ibid.: 189). This powerful sense of community, connected to St Cuthbert, allowed the bishopric of Durham to maintain a powerful autonomy from the king as the Bishops of Durham during the late Middle Ages claimed a ‘self-professed position as trustees of St Cuthbert’, in turn allowing them to ‘lay claim to an ideological source of power independent of the crown and to affirm their autonomy from royal intervention in matters of finance and jurisdiction’ (ibid.: 197). This strong sense of community and identity allowed the people of Durham to hold some bishops accountable and remind them that the land between the rivers Tyne and Tees was not private land for bishops to use as they wished; rather, ‘it was a territory which also belonged to his people’ (ibid.: 198). The introduction of the Rule of St Benedict had a significant effect on the Cathedral’s layout because in addition to housing the cathedra, the building would need to house a community of monastic monks who needed a place to sleep, eat, work and pray separately from the public. Indeed, Richard

Introduction • 7

D. Irvine highlights ‘the active role of buildings in Benedictine life’ (2013: 25). Moreover, since Durham was a cathedral priory, it needed to accommodate pilgrims and members of the public during particular services, which also influenced the building’s emerging shape. Throughout its history, Durham Cathedral has been almost continuously inhabited and it has gone through several periods of change, affecting its fabric and community. After ceasing to serve as a Benedictine priory on 31  December 1540, as a result of the dissolution of the monasteries, it became a place of Anglican worship with a college of canons in January 1541. Following the Battle of Dunbar in 1650, the Cathedral was used as a prison, housing an estimated 3,000–5,000 Scottish prisoners, many of whom died daily from ‘the flux’ (Letter from Haselrigge to Parliament, October 1650, in Bowles 1927: 8–11). After this dark period, the Cathedral was used continuously as a place of daily worship, with the building and community slowly modernizing as a result of changes such as the addition of heating systems in the nineteenth century and Wi-Fi routers in the twenty-first century. Amid such changes, the importance of continuity in Durham Cathedral has been repeatedly established and re-established. In The Seven Lamps of Architecture, John Ruskin perceptively acknowledges that ‘the greatest glory of a building is not in its stones, nor in its gold’; rather, he considers a building’s greatest glory to be its age and describes ‘that deep sense of voicefulness . . . which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of humanity’ (1849: 233–34). This sentiment recurs throughout this book as members of the community recognize the deep history of the building and the many lives that have engaged with the building. The common acknowledgement of the centuries of prayers that have seeped into the stones of Durham Cathedral is a testament to the recognition that the building has not simply been witness to history but is a consequence of it. Indeed, Sally Foster and Siân Jones, in discussing Ruskin’s suggestion in relation to the biography of the Hilton of Cadboll Pictish cross-slab, argue that ‘it is the effects of human engagement over time which produces their voicefulness or sense of authenticity’ (2008: 266). While this brief history cannot serve as the sole testimony to this fact, this book continually finds that human engagement has been central to the emergence of Durham Cathedral as it is experienced today: not as a building that is separate from its turbulent but temporally distant history but as a continual emergence from this history as events are remembered, retold and experienced in the materiality of the building. From the stories of lost monks told to school children to the damage caused to effigies of local nobility in the nave by Scottish soldiers, this history is not separate from the present but is at all times experiential in Durham Cathedral.

8  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

What Is a Cathedral? In the English medieval world that gave birth to Durham Cathedral, religion was strongly intertwined with the state and state power. At the same time, the Catholic Church’s power extended across Europe, with the pope at the head of the Church. In England, the highest representative of the pope was the Archbishop of Canterbury, one of two archbishops in the country, which was divided into two provinces that were, in turn, subdivided into dioceses (or sees). The northern province was governed by the Archbishop of York. Within the provinces, dioceses were governed by bishops. Both archbishops also had their own diocese. English dioceses were among the richest in Europe, which led to the building of exceptional churches and cathedrals. The importance of cathedrals derived from them being the ‘headquarters’ of the bishops, who had both political and pastoral powers. The term ‘cathedral’ comes from the ‘cathedra’, the throne of a bishop, which was housed within a cathedral. In the medieval world, there were two common ways of living within the Church. Firstly, there were the monks who devoted their entire lives to God by living under a written Rule. In Durham Cathedral, it was the Rule of St Benedict that guided the monks’ day-to-day existence. Second, there were ‘secular churchmen’, such as most bishops and parish priests. These were men who lived out in the world, separate from the community of monks, and were allowed to possess their own property. Aside from being the headquarters of a bishop, then, cathedrals were also home to a religious community that supported the bishop in the running of his diocese. Durham Cathedral, a monastic cathedral that was called a cathedral priory, was home to a community of Benedictine monks led by a prior. In this particular structure, the bishop took on the role of the abbot, outranking the prior. The monks were all members of the Chapter, the governing body of the cathedral, and received financial support from lands owned by the cathedral. Ten English cathedrals, including Durham, were run on this model. The other nine cathedrals were secular, following the collegiate-church model, with a core community of senior priests, or canons, who were supported by a portion of church land. They formed a Chapter and were led by a dean, who was hierarchically the second in command under the bishop. During the sixteenth-century Reformation, as a result of the dissolution of the monasteries (1536–41) and Henry VIII’s decision to break with Rome, most cathedral priories had shifted to a secular structure by 1541. Henry VIII also changed the power relation between the state and religion, secularizing the state. At this time, many of the cathedrals’ riches and relics were either seized by the Crown or taken away and destroyed. Such major destruction was later repeated during the English Civil War (1642–51), with Puritans destroying religious images and many cathedrals being abandoned

Introduction • 9

and locked. This included Durham, which was used as a prison for Scottish prisoners of war following the Battle of Dunbar in 1650. Such historical and social changes and the various power shifts mean that today many cathedrals look very different to how they would have looked throughout their earlier history. For example, medieval glass and large sculptures, in general, have not survived and Durham Cathedral’s wooden furnishings were destroyed by Scottish soldiers, who used them for firewood. Throughout all of this, cathedrals have undergone much change – both changes in their interiors and architectural and spatial changes – as styles and modes of dwelling have slowly developed. In the most basic terms, therefore, a cathedral is simply a church within which the bishop’s ‘cathedra’ is housed. The Bishop of Durham’s throne is situated within the quire, set above the tomb of the fourteenth-century Bishop Hatfield. The cathedra is mounted high above all other seating and is ornately decorated. Bishops today rarely use the throne, viewing the cathedra’s high position as aloof. This position demonstrates that, throughout its history, the bishop’s headquarters and throne have been part of political power as bishops were appointed by the Crown and ‘played their part in the running of a secular government, attending royal councils and shire courts’ (Brown 2003: 28). The cathedrals were, and are, like businesses and institutions striving for vast wealth and independence. Their power and embeddedness in the social order are attested by the fact that city status was linked to cathedrals. ‘As new dioceses were created in Anglo-Saxon England, the towns in which they were located enjoyed the status of cities’ (Beckett 2001: 1). This practice continued under Henry VIII. Birmingham became the first town without a cathedral to be granted city status in 1889, though a cathedral was soon established in 1905. While the Church was widely integrated into society during the Middle Ages, it was also characterized by the diversity of its ‘religious culture’ (Brown 2003: 4), ‘containing an enormous variety of ideas, institutions and people’ (Cannon 2007: 23). As will emerge throughout this book, the Chapter of Durham Cathedral still tries to open up the Cathedral for the wider Durham community, leading to a wide range of people and ideas being brought within the Cathedral walls. Today, a cathedral has come to mean a lot more than a building that houses a bishop’s throne for those who dwell in it. While Danny Danziger defines cathedrals as ‘the most phenomenal expression of spirituality’ (1989: 8), for some, they represent a place in which one can ‘belong, but in a rather “arm’s-length” manner’ (Platten 2006: 5). Often, they are big enough to offer those unsure about worship a sense of anonymity. More broadly, cathedrals can be viewed as ‘iconic buildings for many who rarely enter them’, with ‘many communities competing for space in any cathedral’ (James 2006: 13), and Durham Cathedral is no different.

10  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

A cathedral, therefore, is a building that has the potential for many competing and negotiating spaces to be created by people in the building. Indeed, these negotiations are often at the centre of discussions throughout this book. The question of what a cathedral is has inspired a large amount of research across a broad spectrum of disciplines. Taking a wide cross-section of such research, Chaoran Wang and Michael Andrew Hann (2019) examine the inspirations behind medieval cathedrals’ floor-plan designs, revealing their complex geometric constructions. Similarly, Norman Smith takes an approach informed by engineering history to understand historical structural questions, for example, ‘whether the observation of cracking was a part of the design experience, or whether cracks were regarded as merely a nuisance which let water in’. Ultimately, Smith concludes, it is important to recognize that ‘the medieval engineer’s concepts and methods depended predominantly on experience, intuition and trial and error’ (2003: 57). Such research is clearly relevant to the reconstruction of Notre Dame de Paris, which featured in an article entitled ‘Notre Dame: Rebuilding an Icon’ in the February 2022 issue of National Geographic, as well as appearing on the cover. Elena Giovannoni and Paolo Quattrone used the construction of Siena Cathedral between 1259 and 1357 to display the interconnections between conceived, perceived and lived spaces, thereby challenging the ‘so-called metaphysics of presence in organization studies’ (2018: 849). Meanwhile, Marie Clausen’s (2016) approach to cathedrals investigates their long-lasting appeal. Using Durham Cathedral as an example, Clausen considers how and why such buildings should be preserved. In doing so, she makes use of visitor feedback and personal experience to interpret architecture as experiencebased instead of discussing it in more conventional ways, such as those proposed above by Smith (2003). Considering the conservation of cathedrals, Siân Jones and Thomas Yarrow (2013, 2014, 2022) have examined how historic buildings such as Glasgow Cathedral are cared for through conservation efforts. They focus on concerns ranging from the authenticity of materials in conservation work to the engagement that occurs through the skilled practices of masons. Taking a different approach to conservation, Michael O’Connor (1998) considers the negative aspects of securing conservation funding, arguing that the speed at which work can be carried out should never take precedence over the quality of work and in cases in which there are insufficient funds to ensure the necessary quality of the work, a reduced response would be preferential. In terms of cathedral research that focuses on the people who enter cathedrals, Richard Voase used qualitative data from focus-group discussions to explore the psychology of a ‘rich experience’ in cathedrals. He found that experiences in these places were ‘romantic and primarily emotional’ and concluded that visitor management at the unnamed English cathedral in

Introduction • 11

question should ‘emphasize connection with human continuity’ (2007: 41). Myra Shackley (2006), on the other hand, questions the impact of cathedral tourism in England, finding that cathedrals offer a substantial benefit in terms of visitor spending in the local area as tourists spend time not only in the cathedrals but also in the surrounding urban centres in which they are situated. Reports by both the Theos and the Grubb Institute (2012) and Dee Dyas (2017) have examined the wider roles of English cathedrals and found that the importance of cathedrals resides in their ability to engage in and sustain a broad range of connections that extend beyond a tourist and pilgrim scope. The reports found that they offer diverse spaces of valuable spiritual capital. Finally, Leslie Francis’s (2015) edited volume offers a range of theologically informed empirical studies on cathedrals, dedicated to topics ranging from who attends cathedral carol services and why, to the spiritual quest of visitors and even the motivational styles of cathedral congregations. What is often overlooked in such research is the interconnected relationships in which cathedrals are involved. In taking a more focused approach to the study of cathedrals as those mentioned above, one inevitably loses the complexities of the various parts of cathedral communities and, in turn, the multiple connections to and relationships with the buildings as individuals and groups engage and interact with the cathedral organism in their own unique way. In choosing to undertake a long-term ethnographic study spanning fourteen months, I aimed to take a more holistic approach to understanding what a cathedral is, beyond a tourist attraction, a place of worship and a building of importance to historical and cultural heritage. I wanted to understand what a cathedral is around the edges, how it is experienced on cold January mornings and how this differs from busy religious holidays. To do so, I undertook numerous interviews with people engaged in many areas of cathedral life and those connected to the Cathedral from afar, for example, county council leaders. Similarly, I spent a large amount of time working in the archives of Durham Cathedral and Durham University, where much of the Cathedral archive is held. Exerting perhaps the greatest influence on my research, however, were the many voluntary roles I filled, for example, as a LEGO builder, a Sunday afternoon steward, helping out on weekday mornings in the finance office, and simply being useful whenever and wherever I could, all of which brought me into contact with the many different parts of the Cathedral community. This not only allowed me to grasp the multitude of ways in which the community and building are experienced; it also gave me a sense of what it means to be an invested part of the community and daily life of Durham Cathedral. One of the central points of this book is that life in Durham Cathedral is an emergent process of dwelling. As people go about their daily lives, they

12  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

are engaged in caring for and cultivating the building/community symbiosis. This symbiosis is ‘the Cathedral’ and it is a continuous process of negotiation. Being present in Durham Cathedral for such an extended period of time afforded me the opportunity to see how these negotiations were expressed and engaged, which revealed a complex and dynamic process of dwelling that emerges through these multiple negotiations between community and building. While this process is not always easy, it is necessary for the continuation of the Cathedral as a living, dynamic and symbiotic organism. Viewing the community and building as separate, or at least failing to give credence to the relationship between them, results in cathedrals being perceived as tourist attractions or places of worship against a backdrop of historically significant materials that undergo conservation in order to maintain their authenticity. What then falls out of focus is the fact that cathedrals are qualitatively more complex than the sum of their parts. That is not to say that other researchers have not recognized this complexity. Indeed, such recognition has likely inspired the diverse approaches to the understanding of cathedrals. However, by taking a more holistic, immersed approach and understanding that the spaces of Durham Cathedral open up over time, intersections begin to appear between the experience of life in Durham Cathedral and meaning-making. These intersections offer spaces in which creativity in negotiation occurs. In each of the three parts of this book, these negotiations are the central focus, whether the negotiations be between the various parts of the community of Durham Cathedral (Part I), the ways the building and community experientially engage (Part II) or the manner in which building through dwelling is a continuous process of negotiation (Part III). Throughout this book, I argue that Durham Cathedral can be viewed as a laboratory, a place of experimentation in which community, experience and building are all in a process of continuous negotiation through dwelling. This dwelling involves care and cultivation, which result in ‘the Cathedral’ unfolding into the world. As such, Durham Cathedral, and many other cathedrals and community buildings, should not be viewed as disconnected backdrops to life within the building. Nor should they be seen as representations of the community. Rather, they are living, symbiotic organisms of dwelling that are continuously unfolding over time. This book, therefore, explores the various ways in which dwelling is articulated, thus displaying the continual unfolding of the Cathedral. When viewed in its totality, this book reveals the complex ways in which cathedrals are deeply woven into a collective and dynamic understanding of heritage, community and belonging. I argue, therefore, that in order to understand what a cathedral is in its current state, one must attempt to understand the tapestry into which the building has, for centuries, been

Introduction • 13

continually woven. It is only when we begin to step back and view this wider tapestry of meaning that we can start to appreciate the complex unfoldings that are cathedrals. As I briefly showed above, cathedrals have inspired, and continue to inspire, a vast amount of academic literature, much of which is concerned with what a cathedral is. However, long-term ethnographic research has not been a key component of these studies and so the benefits of the methodological approaches afforded by long-term fieldwork have not been able to flourish. As this book reveals, it is only through long-term fieldwork that the unfolding of the Cathedral through dwelling and the symbiotic relationships involved in that process begin to reveal themselves. Indeed, in the absence of extended fieldwork, such relationships might be suggested but never viewed in action. One of the recurring and perhaps most revealing comments that I have heard in Durham Cathedral is that community and the many actions in which it engages, including worship, meeting friends for coffee and a plethora of other activities, are given space in which to engage with the building. The result of this is that people can find their own space within the Cathedral and thus continue the symbiotic process of care and cultivation.

Experiencing Durham Cathedral In considering the way in which cathedrals provide space for people, one particular approach that has been used involves viewing English cathedrals as heterotopias. A term initially formulated by Michel Foucault (2008), Michiel Dehaene and Lieven De Cauter comment that Foucault’s use of the term referred to ‘various institutions and places that interrupt the apparent continuity and normality of everyday space’ (2008: 3–4). In articles by Shackley (2002) and Jorge Gutic, Eliza Caie and Andy Clegg (2010), the term is applied to English cathedrals in an attempt to make sense of visitor motivations. While neither article relies on long-term fieldwork – the latter involved questionnaires being completed over an eleven-day period – both argue that visitors are searching for ‘sacred spaces, or heterotopia’ (Gutic, Caie and Clegg 2010: 756). While Shackley suggests that this is a conscious effort, Gutic, Caie and Clegg argue that it is subconscious. Although both studies illuminate the issues I have noted above, namely that such short periods of fieldwork reveal nothing but the shallowest of the complex relations that exist in cathedrals, the concept of the heterotopia may still have proven useful to this study. However, as Edward Soja points out, it was never fully worked out by Foucault and, as such, the concept is ‘frustratingly incomplete, inconsistent, incoherent’ (1996: 162). In elaborating on

14  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

the difficulty of the concept, Benjamin Genocchio argues that the heterotopia represents a space of exclusion within [Foucault’s] writings, but, knowing full well the impossibility of its realization, it comes to designate not so much an absolutely differentiated space as the site of that very limit, tension, impossibility. (1995: 42)

As a result of the lack of unity in the interpretation of the concept of the heterotopia and the fact that the term is ‘seldom employed as a systematically developed concept’, Nikita Kharlamov argues that the term is most often ‘used to pin down the basic intuition that some places and spaces manifest a certain tension between different and contradictory organizing logics, patterns, and meanings’ (2014: 864). While these tensions are of interest to this study, the analytical pathways that heterotopias might reveal were, I felt, overly restrictive. I do not doubt that many who enter cathedrals find a heterotopic space, ‘a sort of place that lies outside all places and yet is actually localizable’ (Foucault 1986: 15). Yet, there are just as many who do not, finding instead a place of employment, a place that is firmly a part of their everyday actions and experiences. In recognizing the vast number of ways in which Durham Cathedral is engaged with and experienced, my approach has been influenced by more phenomenological approaches, offering a means of understanding and analysing the diverse ways in which Durham Cathedral is experienced. As Maurice Merleau-Ponty outlines, phenomenology is ‘the study of essences’, understood not as being separate from the world we experience but ‘within existence’; in his view, the only way to ‘understand man and the world is by beginning from their “facticity”’. In short, phenomenology is the account of ‘“lived” space, “lived” time, and the “lived” world’ (2014: lxx). However, as both Henri Bergson (1946) and Tim Ingold point out, life does not ‘begin here or end there’ (2000: 172). Rather, it is in a state of constant motion. Since we are in every way so completely related to the world, ‘the only way for us to catch sight of ourselves is by suspending this movement’ (Merleau-Ponty 2014: lxxvii). This must be done because presuppositions are otherwise ‘“taken for granted” and they pass by unnoticed’. However, by breaking away from our familiarity with the world, such a ‘rupture can teach us nothing except the unmotivated springing forth of the world’ (ibid.). Phenomenology, therefore, offers pathways towards ‘thinking rigorously and . . . describing accurately the complex relation between person and world’ (Seamon and Mugerauer 2000: 1). Developing on a phenomenological approach, it is important to consider the concept of the ‘environment’. My own perspective on the environment

Introduction • 15

is informed by Ingold’s description, whereby the environment takes on relevance depending on who is experiencing that environment. ‘Thus, my environment is the world as it exists and takes on meaning in relation to me, and in that sense it came into existence and undergoes development with me and around me’ (Ingold 2000: 20, emphasis in the original). Furthermore, environments are never complete: created through the ongoing ‘activities of living beings, then so long as life goes on, they are continually under construction’ (ibid.). This is essential to the understanding of the relationship between Durham Cathedral and the people who have inhabited and continue to inhabit the building because, as will become apparent throughout this book, the continuing ‘usefulness’ of the 900-plus-year-old building is dependent on the building’s state of constant making. In contrast to the term ‘environment’, David Seamon uses the more phenomenological term ‘lifeworld’, describing this as the ‘everyday realm of experiences, actions, and meanings typically taken for granted’ (2017: 1). Designating buildings as both lifeworlds and places, Seamon suggests that place is the ‘lived component of lifeworld that is most relevant for examining architectural experience and meaning’ (ibid.). Thus, from a phenomenological standpoint, ‘place can be defined as any environmental locus that draws human experiences, actions, and meanings together spatially and temporally’ (ibid.). In this sense, buildings such as Durham Cathedral become places that not only underpin and maintain lifeworlds, but also maintain a lived engagement with a number of different lifeworlds that come to be connected through that building. Thus, a building such as Durham Cathedral becomes a constellation of ‘actions, events, situations, and experiences all associated with and activated by the individuals and groups that make use of that building’ (ibid.). How, then, might we go about practically experiencing a building? Richard Kearny recalls Merleau-Ponty’s argument that our bodies are ‘living centres of intentionality’ in which a symbiotic relationship exists as ‘we choose our world and . . . our world chooses us’ (1995: 74). Similarly, Juhani Pallasmaa develops an approach to architecture and the world around us that situates its existence through the body. This again results in a symbiotic relationship between our embodied experience and our environment in which each comes to define the other. Consequently, ‘I dwell in the city and the city dwells in me’ (2012: 43). The parallels between Pallasmaa and Ingold are clear: the environment and our bodies are continually under construction as a result of the process of day-to-day life. Our continuous interaction and engagement with our environments continuously inform and redefine both our environments and ourselves. We experience the world around us in a unified way, with ‘the percept of the body and the image of the world turn[ing] into one single continuous existential experience’

16  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

(ibid.). Pallasmaa’s understanding of how we experience architecture has had a significant influence on my approach to daily life in Durham Cathedral, particularly my examination of the relationship between the people of Durham Cathedral and the building itself. The role of negotiation in maintaining a relationship between the building and the people is also important. As Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold point out, ‘there is no script for social and cultural life’ (2007: 1). Instead, life needs to be worked out as we go along, improvising our way through various situations. Setting out four important points of improvisation, they suggest that it is generative and thus promotes ‘phenomenal forms of culture as experienced by those who live by them or in accord with them’ (ibid.). It is relational and thus continually engaging with and reacting to others, as well as being temporal in that it emerges over a duration and is incapable of being reduced down to a single moment. Finally, ‘improvisation is the way we work’ (ibid.: 1, emphasis in the original). Understanding improvisation as a creative process, then, involves viewing the world as ‘always in the making’ (Jackson 1996: 4). Creative processes of negotiation and improvisation occur among groups of people that share a building without necessarily sharing the same agenda. This book will, in part, be an examination of how these groups of people – which sometimes come together and sometimes disperse – collaborate or clash as they negotiate and improvise their meeting in a shared building by carving out separate spaces and thereby shaping and being shaped by Durham Cathedral. The image of community within Durham Cathedral is not a neat picture of unity in the worship of God. Rather, it is a messy picture that emerges through continuous processes of change, negotiation and the co-existence of the numerous groups of people and agendas, religious and otherwise, that come together within the shared space of Durham Cathedral. As such, I approach Durham Cathedral as a place of contestation, contradiction and opposition, arguing that this messy process of change and negotiation creates the character and environment of Durham Cathedral today. I present the Cathedral as I found it, a space that encompasses a wide spectrum of life and space-making and not simply a sacred or religious space. I build my analysis, therefore, upon the assumption that Durham Cathedral as a building – its fabric and its space – is always in motion; it is always in the making. Those who inhabit it and interact with it constantly negotiate its space among each other, as well as negotiating the many possibilities of the building’s materiality. Thus, improvisation comes into play when space has to be divided between tourists and worshippers, or when heating has to be managed in order to make the otherwise cold nave habitable and even comfortable.

Introduction • 17

While we may live in a world of constant motion, in which everything is ‘always in the making’ (Jackson 1996: 4), the subtle fluidity of this change is not always apparent. Looking at Durham Cathedral, unpractised eyes may not see the erosion of the stones or the changes in how spaces are used. They may not notice the bricked-up doorway 12 feet from the ground with no sight of a staircase. The archives, however, quickly reveal that the doorway once offered a route directly from the Monks’ Dormitory straight into the nave so that they would not have to brave the cold winter conditions  on their way to the night Offices. Similarly, the archives reveal that the Cathedral library was once the Monks’ Refectory and that the restaurant was once a cool dark storage space for food and drink. Although these spaces may not have changed substantially in my lifetime – the library has been used as such since the seventeenth century and the restaurant has existed since the 1970s – it is important to remember that these spaces bear the marks of their past. Most obviously, they were  built for their former uses and are now recommissioned and renegotiated spaces. In the Galilee Chapel, for example, the columns show signs of  significant erosion,  thought to be the result of the removal of the roof in the eighteenth century and later the burning of coke – a fuel made from coal that burns at higher temperatures – releasing into the relatively small space of the chapel acidic gases that reacted with the polished limestone known as Purbeck marble. Human practices and needs (staying warm, in this case) do not  always suit the fabric of the building, which pushes back due to their attributes and so eroding if not treated adequately. If people wish to continue inhabiting the spaces between the Cathedral’s walls, present and future practices must engage with the practices of the past. As Ian Hodder points out, we often take the things around us for granted,  failing to acknowledge their temporal connections and failing to  appreciate that things depend on other things and that they are not inert. As such, there is a ‘spatial and temporal forgetting of the unstable connections of things’ (2012: 6). Using a wristwatch as an example, Hodder remarks that the watch has spatial and temporal connections that we ignore: The wristwatch is also the product of millennia of change in temporal schemes. My watch tells the date. The yearly calendar was first fixed by Julius Caesar – trying to wrest power from religious leaders who controlled a variable time. This Julian calendar was replaced by a Gregorian one – that established our current 12 months and the start of the year on January 1 . . . I am linked to Julius Caesar directly through my watch. And yet for most of the time we ignore these histories. (Ibid.)

18  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

As I have shown already in this introduction, the body of St Cuthbert, buried in Durham Cathedral, links the community and the building back to the island of Lindisfarne and is often referenced by the clergy and community, illustrating the importance of acknowledging the temporal connections that exist within the environment. Furthermore, decisions made in relation to the building nowadays also explore these connections to the past. An example of this would be the question of charging an entrance fee, as many other cathedrals do. The decision not to introduce a fee was made, in part, because of the core Benedictine value that all visitors should be welcomed as if welcoming Jesus (chapter 53 of the Rule of St Benedict). Although the Cathedral is no longer a Benedictine priory, it is still partially informed by its spatial and temporal connections. Whilst these are but two examples of the building’s connections with the past, there are many such connections that are evident throughout cathedral life. Acknowledging the role of the past is also important as the past is inscribed into the fabric of the building, not only as a result of past human activities but also as a result of past environmental changes as the wind and rain constantly erode the walls. Life with Durham Cathedral depends on the negotiation of these spatial and temporal influences on the building, both human and environmental. The running of the Cathedral costs more than £1 million a year. This money funds, among other things, the changing of eroded stones – Durham sandstone is particularly porous and so erodes at a faster rate than other, less porous forms of sandstone – the replacement of rotten wood, and heating, so visitors feel comfortable, all of which are processes of negotiation with the past. Similarly, the finding of alternative funding methods to charging an entrance fee has been informed by the Cathedral’s past. Since these temporal connections have agency in daily life within Durham Cathedral, it is important to recognize that they, too, are ongoing negotiations of the past, aiding the forming of the present, and that they are constantly referring back to the imagined past of the community of monks who once inhabited the building.

Book Structure This book is organized into three main parts. The first part, ‘Life in Durham Cathedral’, explores the community directly through the narratives of members of various parts of Durham Cathedral’s community. I discuss not only what ‘community’ is in the context of the Cathedral, but also the difficulties in negotiating between different parts of the community, as well as dealing with both a changing building and dynamic and shifting identities. Thus, the complexity of ‘value’ within community begins to emerge.

Introduction • 19

Chapter 2 examines the role that religion plays, not in the day-to-day services provided for the congregation but in the wider context of life within Durham Cathedral. Religion is particularly intriguing in the context of a world and a building that are seemingly becoming increasingly secular, with religion being seen as less and less meaningful in life. Chapter 3 explores the dynamic that exists between tourism and pilgrimage. As the clergy at the Cathedral are at pains to see all visitors as pilgrims, I question the value and impact of doing so. The chapters in this first part reveal the changing dynamic of cathedral life, which is slowly opening up to the diverse ways in which the building can be, and is, experienced by a wide range of individuals, with space being provided to allow for negotiation between various intentions and needs. The second part, ‘Experiencing Durham Cathedral’, examines daily life in the building in relation to sound, light, time and space. Chapter 4 considers the role played by sound – for example, its role in religious services – and how sound informs and reveals aspects of the relationship between the building and the community. In chapter 5, I turn my attention towards the role that light plays in this relationship, again exploring its role in religious services and in how we experience the building and its architecture. The final chapter in this part considers the role of both time and space in Durham Cathedral. I consider how the community organizes itself over time and ultimately how the building helps to accommodate the various groups of people who use the building at the same time for very different purposes, highlighting the constant negotiation of space and time that occurs in the ever-changing environment. In the final part of this book, entitled ‘The Living Cathedral’, I shift the focus to the building itself, considering its continually changing body. Each of the chapters in this final section emerges from the previous chapter as they, in turn, explore the processes of building, dwelling in and changing Durham Cathedral. Chapter 7 examines the building of a cathedral, considering the parallels with the construction of a scale replica of Durham Cathedral in LEGO during my fieldwork. I explore the processes of building that intrinsically tie communities to the building, as well as the role of templates as building tools for both LEGO and stone cathedrals. Chapter 8 moves on to the dwelling process, in which attention shifts from construction to the tending to and caring for that emerge as key elements of the dwelling process. Again, I draw on the construction of the LEGO Cathedral. In the last chapter of Part III, I explore the role heritage plays in the continuous process of change in Durham Cathedral, examining how conservation has impacted the flow of life in the building, so that it may be preserved for future generations, and highlighting the important role played by negotiation and the community in this process.

20  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

Finally, in the coda of this book I make the argument that historically important buildings such as Durham Cathedral cannot be seen as backdrops to life in which the buildings’ material value is cherished above all else. Rather, I contend that life does not happen in Durham Cathedral but with Durham Cathedral as the building and community form a symbiotic organism of dwelling.

Part I

Life in Durham Cathedral

Chapter 1

Community?



Introduction I had only been in Durham Cathedral a matter of hours when the term ‘community’ was used in conversation. I was sitting in the restaurant in the undercroft on my very first day, chatting with the Cathedral’s visitor services coordinator, Anne Heywood. We were discussing ways in which I might integrate myself into the daily life of the Cathedral. ‘Well, of course,’ she said, ‘there are a number of different communities here, each overlapping with the next, so I suppose it’s a question of which community you want to be a part of.’ Those different communities extend from stewards to embroiderers, choristers to bell ringers, cleaners to bats and almost everything in between, including the community of ‘bat people’, a group that cares for the community of bats living in the cloisters. A number of these different groups do, as Anne suggested, overlap, but many do not and exist separately from each other. For example, many people did not know about the community of bat carers and were surprised when I showed them pictures of the bats being cared for. Similarly, the bat carers seldom engaged in cathedral life outside of their rota of inspecting the cloister at dusk and feeding and watering any bats that might have fallen. Yet, members of these groups that were more removed from the central hustle and bustle of daily life in the Cathedral still expressed a sentiment of pride and privilege in relation to being a part of the Durham Cathedral community. When I asked those who used the word ‘community’ who or what they meant by it, I often got the same reply – ‘Well, us, of course’, accompanied

24  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

by a vague wave of the hand – which left me uncertain as to whether ‘community’ involved only those in the room or everyone who wandered through the building, or even the building itself. This last point was particularly ambiguous because people would refer to those employed at the Cathedral, either in the office or as a part of the Chapter, as ‘the Cathedral’. For example, ‘the Cathedral is planning a charity event in the nave on Wednesday’. While I always knew to whom they were referring – those employed to work at the Cathedral – the fact that these people were referred to as the Cathedral caught my attention. Though it was not always the Cathedral’s governing body or those directly employed in the Cathedral who were referred to as ‘the Cathedral’, the further from the centre – understood here to be the governing body of the Dean and Chapter – you moved, the more people ‘the Cathedral’ encompassed. As the question I asked of those who spoke of community highlights, a precise understanding of what community refers to is often difficult to articulate, despite being prominent in daily life; the term ‘community’ is explicitly understood but vaguely defined. Nevertheless, we might confidently suggest that, at its core, it involves a commonality between people, who are brought together and share a sense of belonging. This sense of belonging, however, does not simply happen. Instead, it is cultivated by the effort people make and their dedication to a common goal. As Anthony P. Cohen points out, when it is no longer assumed that we share anything with those around us, ‘community’ has come to evoke an element of sharedness among a group of individuals (2002: 169). Although the community of Durham Cathedral may be both disjointed and overlapping, there is one common denominator: the building. Trying to articulate an overarching understanding of ‘the community’ during my fieldwork always felt like too difficult a task and, on returning to my fieldnotes, I quickly realized that it was possibly a fruitless one. For those I spoke to, the community was an unquestionable fact of Durham Cathedral; there is a strong and vibrant community, and there was nothing more to say about it. Therefore, it is not what the community is, but how people make sense of it, expressing and locating themselves within it, that is important.

The Chapter Clerk I had waited four weeks for the meeting, but finally I was sitting in the office of Philip Davies, the Cathedral’s Chapter Clerk. The role of the Chapter Clerk is an administrative one, involving supporting the Chapter in its governance of the Cathedral. In non-cathedral terms, the position might be better understood as that of a managing director. After welcoming me at

Community? • 25

the small reception, he had led me through the Cathedral office, a veritable rabbit warren of small rooms, all leading into one another. In each room, staff from departments such as ‘marketing’, ‘events’, and ‘finance’ sat at their desks, making phone calls and sending emails. I was reminded of how large an operation running a cathedral is. Housed in an old adjoining building intended for other purposes, the Cathedral office is poorly suited to this use, as modern office desks awkwardly negotiate boarded-up fireplaces and ill-thought-out power points on the walls. The only hint that the space served as the office of a cathedral was the odd picture of Durham Cathedral hanging in the small rooms and tight corridors. To see the actual Cathedral from the office was difficult through the small windows and impossible in most of the rooms. ‘OK then, if you tell me what you’re looking at, I’ll try to pitch accordingly,’ Philip said as we entered his office and took our seats on either side of his desk. I replied, ‘I’m really interested in the relationships between the people in and around the Cathedral and the building itself ’. Nodding understandingly, he said: Well, that’s interesting because I often say, to myself and others, that what this is about is relationships. In terms of what makes us distinctive, is there anything other than the fact that we’re congregated around this particular space, this architecture? What is it that makes us distinctive? If you say to people, ‘What do you mean by Durham Cathedral?’, which I do, I start by saying, ‘Do you mean that building on the hill or within it? Do you mean the school? Do you mean the shop? Do you mean the restaurant? Do you mean the library? Do you mean the office? Do you mean the riverbanks?’ – which are effectively a public park – all of which belong to the Cathedral. ‘Do you mean Prebends Bridge? Do you mean the exhibitions and concerts and the sort of events that go on in the Cathedral? Or do you mean the services that go on in the Cathedral?’ Because they are all Durham Cathedral in its different kinds of manifestations. And, depending on who you are talking to at any one time, it could be any one of those things, or it could be a combination of those things, but they’re all Durham Cathedral. And when I say that, people usually go, ‘Oh yeah, I see what you mean’. And my answer, if people are unsure, is that we are trying to be a community of people who obviously have a particular relationship with this building; because of its history, its purpose, historic and religious and all the rest of it. But in terms of our day-to-day lives, people who work in and out of this office, and myself included, sometimes go for days and days without going in there [the Cathedral]. It can be quite detached, its own separate community. You see, it’s also the thing about how many people are employed voluntarily or paid staff, which is now nearly 900 people engaged on this site. That’s mainly volunteers, 720 of them, but we have 140 staff, and then there are contractors as well, on top, who come in and do things like run the kitchens

26  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

in the school, and whilst they’re not a part of our staff, they obviously have a strong connection to the place. In Durham terms, 900 people makes us a very major employer, even if you just count the paid staff. That’s one of the largest employers in Durham, apart from the university, the county council and the prison. I think the Cathedral is perhaps the fourth biggest employer of paid staff in Durham.

Having conveyed just how complex the community is, Philip moved on to how, for him, community is informed by his Christian faith and ‘gospel values’: A lot of staff here have no faith commitment as such and are not required to. We can’t insist that everyone here has a faith. It would be illegal for one thing, but if we are not attempting to live as a community of generosity towards one another, compassion, honesty . . .

He broke off and was suddenly focused on his computer, his face hidden by the screen. I sat in silence and listened to the clicking of his mouse until, a moment later, he re-emerged from behind the screen and continued speaking as the printer clunked into action: What we are doing at the moment: the Dean is working on a ‘values statement’. It’s all very well me – with individual members of staff or even groups of staff – spouting away about values, but we ought to try to articulate that. A simple statement that actually came from Westminster Abbey. I’ll show it to you because I was very impressed with it because of its simplicity. It’s a very simple statement about values and it can help us in terms of setting standards for ourselves and by means of which we can challenge ourselves by saying we can achieve this.

Reaching for the printer, he handed me the statement from Westminster Abbey, which I read. It was very simple, focusing on six concepts: action, community, communication, opportunity, respect and diversity. I nodded at its simplicity. Philip said: You see, very simple, and that could very well be written for Durham Cathedral. But I do find the question of community very interesting. There are different communities here with regard to volunteers, and the office, for instance. The staff in the library will perceive themselves as a different community to the staff in the office. But it’s how we work together that is the challenge and it occupies a lot of my thinking. We need to be like the old cliché, ‘singing from the same hymn sheet’, but we often don’t. There are 140 staff here and 720 volunteers, so that is a big community and the managing of it is quite challenging at times.

Community? • 27

Philip’s concern about community relates to coherence. As Chapter Clerk, he sees it as his task to provide the existing community with coherence by providing a set of guidelines or values formulated by the Cathedral’s governing body, the Chapter, and informed by its Christian faith and gospel values. Whilst it is not my intention here to delve too deeply into values, it is important to touch upon them in order to better understand Philip’s view of community. As a man of the Christian faith and the managing director of a house of God, Philip must deal with all aspects of Cathedral life, including the financial aspects, and so all meanings of the term ‘value’ are relevant to his role. As Paul K. Eiss and David Pedersen point out, ‘expressed in terms of dyadic distinctions: Value is about measure or meaning; it is material or symbolic, secular or sacred, abstract or concrete, individual or collective, qualitative or quantitative, global or local’ (2002: 283). Seen in this way, value creates several difficulties for Philip. As Chapter Clerk, Philip must oversee the measurable financial growth of the Cathedral, increasing visitor numbers without impacting the integrity of the building’s meaning or its material and symbolic importance. In doing so, he must plan to provide space for all, secular and non-secular, so that quantitative pressures do not diminish the qualitative experience on global and local, and abstract and concrete levels. As will emerge throughout this chapter and book, these are all highly pressing issues, the negotiation of which is a constant process. As Elizabeth Tunstall suggests, ‘value systems and cultures have to be accepted as dynamic, not static’ (2013: 240). Therefore, negotiation is an important aspect of community life in Durham Cathedral, not only for the Chapter and Chapter Clerk, who must provide space whilst protecting the Cathedral’s integrity, but also for the community as it negotiates and engages with the space of the Cathedral. In such a dynamic and complex role, it is little wonder that value plays an important role in how Philip makes sense of community and his perceived duty to the Cathedral and the community today and in the future. As Philip often pointed out in relation to the role of the Chapter and Clerk, ‘We are nothing more than a custodian of the building and community.’

Pat Just as value plays an important role in Philip’s understanding of community, it was also important to many of the volunteers I spent time with. People’s reasons for volunteering ranged from getting out of the house to meeting new people following the death of a husband to looking to get involved in activities beyond university life. Volunteers’ backgrounds were diverse: there

28  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

were retired physics professors, retired miners and even my former secondary school English teacher, Mrs Dean. The countless volunteers I met during my fieldwork all had different reasons for wanting to volunteer and many had been volunteering for decades. The largest group of volunteers is the stewards, who are very much the public face of the Cathedral. They welcome visitors through the doors and, dressed in purple robes, are visible throughout the building should anybody have a question about the Cathedral, its history or, as was most often the case during my stewarding shifts, the location of the bathroom. There were three three-hour shifts throughout the day and the stewards divided themselves into smaller groups based on the shift they volunteered for. The rhythms of people’s volunteering varied widely, with some volunteering for several shifts a week while others volunteered for one shift a month. In addition to stewarding, some volunteers acted as tour guides, guiding groups around the Cathedral and explaining aspects of the history of Durham Cathedral. One volunteer I spent time with was Pat. Originally from Scotland, Pat has volunteered at Durham Cathedral for many years. Her husband was a reverend and honorary canon of the Cathedral. Her daughter, once an acolyte at Durham Cathedral, whose job it was to assist priests during services, had just been appointed Bishop of Waikato in New Zealand. During my fieldwork, Pat had been the driving force behind ‘Read Bede’, in which the Venerable Bede’s eighth-century text, ‘Ecclesiastical History of the English People’, was read aloud in the Galilee Chapel beside the author’s tomb. According to a report Pat compiled after the week-long event, ‘the Read’ consisted of ‘91 individuals, a choir of 11, a church group of 4, 4 pupils and one teacher from the Venerable Bede Academy in Sunderland, and five students and one teacher from St Bede Catholic school and six from Bede College in Lanchester’. Of these individuals, one Durham University alumna, who graduated in 1989 and lives in Seattle in the United States, followed the progress on the Cathedral’s website, having a chapter read on her behalf and a short video of the reading sent to her. Another woman from Kansas City in the United Staes, who was on a pilgrimage to Iona, Lindisfarne and Durham, ‘pursuing her love of Bede’, was overcome with emotion when invited to read a chapter. Always a friendly face from the start of my fieldwork, Pat would stop for a chat or say hello whenever we crossed paths. Finally, I asked if she would like to sit down for a coffee and a chat about life in the Cathedral. A week later, we met in the restaurant. As we sat down, an older man, whose face I recognized from stewarding, stopped to say hello and inquire how Pat’s daughter was getting on in the first months as bishop. ‘Oh, she’s doing great, thanks,’ Pat said. ‘Jim and I are so proud of her.’ Norman nodded and smiled before wandering out of

Community? • 29

the restaurant, his purple stewarding robe hanging over his arm. We quickly turned to life in the Cathedral. Pat said: We’ve been here thirty-eight years, and it was a very different place. It’s only in the last number of years that it has opened up. The current Dean enables engagement, and I think it engages with people a lot more now than it did in the past. It would have been interesting to have had an anthropologist here maybe about fifteen years ago; I think he or she would have found the Cathedral a very different place, very different. I think now, with the fact that the word ‘community’ is used for those who worship and who are around the Cathedral stewarding or whatever, that word would not have been used twelve, thirteen, fourteen years ago – absolutely not. I think Rosalind [a residentiary canon during my fieldwork] has been an influence there. I think with Rosalind and Michael [the Dean during my time in Durham], because of their strong Benedictine leanings and wanting to bring in aspects of Benedictine ways into everyday life in the Cathedral, they have modernized it in a way so that the community is now those of us who are around – interpreting the Benedictine ways in a way which engages people.

Interested in what Pat had said about change in the Cathedral, I pushed her further on the matter, asking if life in the Cathedral has changed for the better: Oh yes, it’s a more accessible place, a lot more accessible, and that’s got to be good for everybody. The Cathedral is definitely changing, and there is a lot of movement happening in the Cathedral, and that would not have happened in the past – absolutely not. I think before, it was holding on to the past, and there was a kind of barrier, you know; the Cathedral was there to do for you, and there was no sense of being in it. It’s a whole liturgical thing as well and it’s not just confined to the Cathedral. I think the church in the past, the priest was there to lead the service. You didn’t participate; you were there and you were a bit like fodder. Now there is a greater sense that we all contribute; it’s not just the priest. So now you have laypeople doing the prayers and just overall greater participation.

‘How do you feel about the future of the Cathedral?’ I asked. Well, sometimes one gets a bit concerned about the whole commercial development of the Cathedral, but I think so long as it retains a liturgical face and the worshipping face . . . but there is such a concentration just now on fundraising and the emergence of hundreds of staff working in the background, so it is becoming a different place. But every generation could say that it’s becoming a different place. I mean, you do get a lot of comments from people saying that they’re concerned and that there is a concern about the commercialization of the Cathedral, but I think as long as you’ve got someone like

30  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

the Dean and his successors, who actually will always recall what the purpose of the building really is, then it’ll be ok. But you know, the development of this cathedral is not a democratic process. This community exists as long as it is allowed to, as long as it is given space to exist. I mean, things like ‘Read Bede’ would have gotten nowhere if it hadn’t been given permission to go ahead, which I suppose brings order to the place, so there is a need for that. But it isn’t a democratic process. I mean, look at the community meetings. You just get told what is happening in the community and then a few minutes of questions at the end. But I also think that being a part of the community here is a huge privilege. When Jim, my husband, received the letter from the bishop to say that he was going to be made an honorary canon of the Cathedral, he just sat silently at his desk before he called me and said, ‘Look what I’ve just received.’ And it is that sense of ‘what an honour, what an honour and a privilege’, and I feel that it is a great honour and privilege to be a steward and to read, and to be a communion assistant, and I’m just so honoured to be able to make that contribution. And the great thing about the community is that it is very quick to embrace, and for you to feel part of it all. I love it.

My conversation with Pat raises a number of elements that are relevant to understanding community in Durham Cathedral. Firstly, the development of the use of the term ‘community’ as an all-encompassing term that describes those who regularly engage with the building is indicative of a nationwide effort by cathedrals to encourage wider engagement with and commitment to them. Doing so widens the net beyond those who worship to people looking to join a communal effort and, as Pat points out, experience a sense of participation, no matter what the driving purpose. Thus, the number of people engaging with Anglican cathedrals across the United Kingdom has risen steadily. A Church of England Research and Statistics report (2019) stated that over ten million people had visited cathedrals that year, a 10 per cent rise on 2017. Similarly, the report showed that the number of those volunteering in cathedrals had remained firmly between fourteen thousand and fifteen thousand in the years 2008–2019. Pat’s comments also reveal another dimension of the task faced by the Chapter. In opening up cathedrals to wider groups of people for more diverse purposes, cathedrals are also seeking to ensure a healthier cash flow. Whilst this is an understandable concern for those who must find the money to pay the costly day-to-day expenses associated with a cathedral, it results in a strong programme of commercialization that is clear to see throughout the building. The knock-on effect of this is the tension it creates within the community as each group begins to vie not only for physical space in the building but also for a place within ‘the Cathedral’. This tension has many different manifestations within the community and will be revisited throughout this

Community? • 31

book, but examples include how the building should be seen (as a museum or a church?) and how to increase revenue (should there be an entrance fee?). These tensions exist between the community and the governing body, and raise the question of how decisions made by the Chapter impact a group’s finding of place within the Cathedral. However, as Pat pointed out, the development of Durham Cathedral is not a democratic process, and community largely exists only as long as it is allowed to exist. Yet, the concerns expressed by individuals reveal two important aspects of the community’s involvement in cathedral life. Firstly, they have a vested interest, cultivated through the time and effort they have given. Secondly, the ‘allowing’ of community is really an opening up of ‘the Cathedral’ to enable participation, which generates a sense of purpose and meaning for those who choose to participate in the various areas of cathedral life. In short, an interdependent relationship has developed between the building and the community as running costs become intertwined with the need to cultivate a vibrant community. The community provides care to both the community and the building in various ways (e.g. clergy, cleaners, bat carers, fundraisers), whilst the building provides the community with space and purpose. Setting aside the tensions experienced by community members, I want to turn to the reasons why individuals might seek out the Cathedral as a place with which to engage regularly. Focusing on two specific individuals from very different parts of the community reveals something of the draw of ‘the Cathedral’. First is Ken, a member of the congregation who also volunteers as a LEGO Maker, which involved constructing a 300,000-brick scale model of Durham Cathedral to help raise money for the Open Treasure Project, a major £10 million project to convert the Monks’ Dormitory and the Great Kitchen into a visitor exhibition space, as well as financing conservation work around the Cathedral. Then there is Rose, an elderly woman who would stop by the LEGO Cathedral to purchase and place a LEGO brick each week.

Ken It was the end of another evening service and, as was often the case, the clergy stood in the transept crossing, bidding goodbye to the congregation, shaking hands and sharing a few words with those who stopped. At such times, people would linger in the crossing to speak to other members of the congregation who had attended the service. On this particular occasion, I spotted Ken. He and I volunteered together one morning a week and I often saw him at evening services. Although I would have liked to have sat down for a long conversation with Ken, he was often very evasive, telling me that

32  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

he did not have much to say and laughing about ending up in the ‘little black book’ that held my fieldnotes. However, I found Ken to be very interesting and was always keen to hear his opinion on happenings in the Cathedral. Seeing Ken standing in the crossing, I decided to take a few moments to chat with him before leaving and heading home. We first discussed the service before I turned the conversation towards his reasons for attending services at the Cathedral. He said: Well, I’ve always been involved in the Church. I’ve done the whole Sunday school thing and the Scouts when my kids were younger in our parish church. You just get more involved in stuff, especially when your kids are getting involved in the Church, but they’re all grown up now, and I think the parish church is more orientated towards younger families. I mean, I’m too old to be doing Scouts and what have you now, so I prefer to come here. I also find that people here are more my age, so you just feel a bit more suited to it. I don’t mind that my parish church is family-orientated, that suited me at one point, but I find that this place suits me more now, and it’s a nice community to be involved with, you know.

Rose Like other parts of the community, the visiting community was diverse, ranging from those meeting friends for a coffee in the restaurant to people visiting from all around the globe. My volunteering as a LEGO Maker proved to be a useful way of meeting many of these visitors. I began to build a rapport with people who visited regularly and returned to the LEGO Cathedral to examine our progress. One such visitor was Rose. When she visited every Thursday, Rose would buy a LEGO brick for the model before making her way into the Cathedral. Towards the end of my fieldwork, I decided to ask her if we could sit down and talk about her visits to Durham Cathedral. She said: I should imagine I’ve been coming here on a Thursday since my husband died twelve years ago. We used to come on a Tuesday and we always used to go to the back of the Cathedral, sit down and look at the Rose Window, and we did that since he retired, maybe before that even, because we used to like walking along the river. It’s very nice. And we’d have a meal in the restaurant, but since I’ve been on my own, I just pop in, put a brick on the model and light a candle for him. I just love the place. My husband loved driving, and we travelled all over England, and we always visited the cathedrals we were near, and we always used to say, ‘Well, you’ve got a good cathedral here, but it’s not as good as Durham.’ I think it’s lovely. Every time you come you can find something different about it. I’m not from Durham though. I’m from Hartlepool. We

Community? • 33

all used to go to St Oswald’s church, and we used to have a vicar who had a lady, they called her Miss Dove, and they brought us here when we were very young because we used to go to Eucharist on a Saturday morning. And when I was very young, they took us to the top of the tower, and I always remember it was a lovely view, but it was ever so windy. I was about seven when I first came here. The thing I always remember about the church was the cloisters; I love the cloisters. And you know, I think it’s a shame that you pay all that money to get into York Minster. I didn’t even know there was a cloister there until someone showed us around them. I mean, it’s lovely, but I don’t think it’s right that they should charge you £10 to go in. Mind, I’ve been to Westminster Abbey and they charged you £5 for being a pensioner, but I thought that was better value because when you went in, they gave you a brochure which told you what everything was, which I thought was good value for money, but apparently, it’s gone up since then. It was a few years ago since I went. Mind you, if they did charge here, I suppose I would still come because I’m fond of the place, but I think it’s better if you leave people to pay what they can afford. I think you’ll get far more people in and probably get more money from it. Even if we go into a little village church, we always used to put money in the box as we came out, but no, I think it spoils it.

Of particular note in what Ken and Rose had to say is the way they express their engagement with Durham Cathedral. Whilst both clearly feel a connection to the building for different reasons, their engagement involves a strong sense of finding a place. In Ken’s case, having been involved with his parish church, he now seeks a place that is more suitable to his needs. Rose, on the other hand, spoke of memories of her husband that are connected to visiting the Cathedral and continues her visits to light a candle for him. In these examples, both Ken and Rose are engaged with the building and part of the community in different ways but experience a similar sense of place, recalling John Eade’s suggestion that the process of place-making ‘involves communities or groups which are not homogeneous entities but contested, heterogeneous social constructions’ (2017: 2). In the broadest terms, a sense of place is how a place makes us feel or, as David Seamon puts it, ‘the customary ways in which a place makes itself felt – its specific manner of being perceived, encountered, known, and remembered by the human beings engaging with that place’ (2021: 1). Viewed in this way, Ken, Rose and countless other individuals can be seen as seeking a sense of place, a particular place that they know or remember, and finding it within the building, the community or both. As such, the building and community may be the same, but the sense of place is different; it is considered differently, encountered differently and perceived differently. Thus, the Cathedral is a heterogeneous place in which groups and individuals

34  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

are given space to find what they are looking for, as testified by a much-used phrase in Durham Cathedral: ‘This place can be whatever you want it to be.’

Archdeacon Ian Jagger So far in this chapter, three themes have arisen in relation to how people make sense of and locate themselves in the community of Durham Cathedral: value, tension and a sense of place. I now want to turn to the role narrative plays in making sense of community and how people locate themselves within it. This was discussed in a conversation with Archdeacon Ian Jagger, a residentiary canon of Durham Cathedral who, as the Durham Archdeacon, oversees parishes running east to west across the centre of the diocese, including the City of Durham and many of County Durham’s former mining communities. As was the case with all of the Cathedral canons, scheduling a meeting was difficult. It would sometimes take months of waiting to finally have thirty minutes to sit and chat, if they agreed to meet at all. Happily, the Archdeacon had agreed. As I was led through to his study, I felt a familiar sense of anticipation and excitement as I thought of the directions in which our conversation might head. Taking a seat, he asked me to explain what I was hoping to find through my research and I explained that I was interested in the ways people inhabit a building that is over nine hundred years old. As our conversation began, it was clear that his own interests were understandably aligned with those of people from outside the everyday community. He talked firstly of those who engaged with the building less often and emphasized how people from all around the diocese come to the Cathedral for the major services, such as those held by the bishop, often to ‘spend time with the bishop’. He then turned his attention to the Cathedral being open to visitors: It’s important that the Cathedral remains free to enter. Many people come back frequently and most of the county feels that the Cathedral is their place. But I think people come back because you get a sense of grandeur, peace and history. I also think, being quite practical about it, there’s not an awful lot to do in Durham and the Cathedral is a free visit. You can come in and wander around and it’s got enough about it that when you come in for a second or third time, you feel that it’s worth a visit; it makes you feel better about yourself. It’s not one of those places where you say, ‘been there done that; no, thank you’. It has a certain kind of atmosphere, a presence.

I asked the Archdeacon how the building’s history might relate to the present. He responded:

Community? • 35

The building’s main claim to history is not through the Benedictines but through Cuthbert, and he is still very much known about and respected in north-east society. The kids in school love Cuthbert’s story because he is a local story. It is romanticized, but this is the shrine of Cuthbert because he is buried here. Again, it’s slightly nostalgic and slightly romantic with regard to the Northern Celtic Saints in Durham Cathedral, with Bede at one end and Cuthbert at the other. But it appeals, and I think people feel they can get in touch with a lost golden age and a lost set of golden Christians who walked the streets. As far as the building goes, it draws on religious roots and historical stuff, regional identity and simple solidity. There’s a sort of solid form of simple chunkiness to the building that drew the monks, and there is that sort of simple harmony there. So, I think the building benefits from the Northern Saints. Very much so.

Finally, I turned the conversation to Durham Cathedral’s connection to County Durham as a whole, asking the Archdeacon what role he feels the Cathedral plays in the county today. Clearly, it does things like the Miners’ Gala, which everybody knows about. It’s a bit faded now compared to what it was, but it is still powerful in the imagination. I mean, when you look at the bands going through the streets, the numbers of people carrying banners through the streets, they’re quite thin actually these days. But the event still lives on in a bigger scale in  people’s  memories than it is on the ground, but that is something quite profound, and the great and the good come and . . . I noticed it also in December as Christmas approaches. Just about every day, there is a carol service of one kind or another, and we have rotas, and we welcome people and preside and so on. And people from the health service have their carol service, and the scouts and guides and all sorts of regional organizations all pile in for their moment in Durham Cathedral, and so, in that sense, it’s a shared space that people can use for celebration, and it has a religious overlay, but it’s more.

During my conversation with the Archdeacon, he repeatedly alluded to narratives that I had encountered throughout my fieldwork. The first was a need by many, including the Cathedral Chapter, to create a sense of continuity in the community. He spoke of the Cathedral’s Benedictine heritage and cautioned against ‘playing at being monks’. Similarly, we discussed the roles of St Cuthbert and the Northern Saints, a group of saints that lived in the Kingdom of Northumbria in the North East of England between the sixth and ninth centuries. Whilst they were historically significant for the Cathedral and the region, the Northern Saints and the community of Benedictine monks were often used to reinforce a sense of continuity within the Cathedral and its community today. Such narratives were often

36  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

highlighted during important events. For example, in announcing the new Bishop of Durham, the Dean emphasized that the office stretches back to the Bishops of Lindisfarne. Similarly, the common argument for not having an entrance fee and welcoming all is also tied to the Benedictine community that occupied the Cathedral from its construction in 1093 until the dissolution the monastery by Henry VIII in 1540. This particular line of argument was often repeated by many community members, employed and voluntary. The implication is that the current community is not in any way separate from communities of the past, but rather stretches back to the Priory of Lindisfarne on Holy Island and, by extension, the Isle of Iona, one of the oldest Christian centres in Western Europe and the central hub in the dissemination of Christianity throughout the British Isles. By approaching concepts such as communities and identities through narratives, we can examine how people construct identity spatially and temporally, connecting themselves to a wider context both on an individual level and as part of a wider community. Margaret R. Somers suggests that regardless of whether we are social scientists or ourselves the subject of historical  research, it is important to recognize that ‘all of us come to be who we  are (however ephemeral, multiple, and changing) by being located or locating ourselves (usually unconsciously) in social narratives rarely of our  own making’ (1994: 606, emphasis in the original). Whether individuals retell the stories of the building or the Northern Saints, the narratives  they share  with each other and visitors commonly serve to firmly establish them  as members  of the community and, by extension, ‘the Cathedral’. This creation of informally retold narrative histories is a basic human activity and a ‘feature of all communal memory’ (Connerton 2006: 17). Communal narratives such as those emphasizing community continuity are not new in Durham Cathedral. The Libellus de Exordio Atque Procursu Istius, Hoc Est Dunhelmensis, Ecclesie (Tract on the Origins and Progress of this the Church of Durham), often abbreviated to the Libellus de Exordio, is an early twelfth-century manuscript attributed to Symeon of Durham, a monk of Durham Cathedral Priory. Instructed to write the Libellus by the Bishop of Durham, William de St Calais, the intention was to strengthen the Benedictine community’s claim to the shrine of St Cuthbert, thus helping to establish the new community in the heritage of the most famous Northern Saint. The connections that Symeon makes are tenuous at best. However, nine hundred years later, the narrative of a continuous community with its roots in the community of Lindisfarne, which could trace its roots to Iona – an important stepping stone in the spread of Christianity across the British Isles – is well established and often repeated.

Community? • 37

Conclusion Cathedrals are unique places in which people from all walks of life are invited to find their place. As spaces that are so readily opened up in the modern world, they are faced with the challenge of having to deal with loosely grouped individuals whose interests or needs in the building at times sit uneasily alongside the needs and interests of others, in what is a diverse melting pot of individuals who are all looking, to differing extents, for a place within the building. Although space and place are often spoken of together and frequently overlap, place is qualitatively distinct from space in many ways. While space encompasses my immediate experience of the world around me, places are constructions of memories and affections that develop and deepen over time, resulting in the experience of place being ‘time-deepened and memory qualified’ (Relph 2000: 26). Places involve relationships, be they positive or otherwise. Belonging to and feeling part of a place instil a sense of security and deep affection, resulting in places being ‘set apart in time and space because they have distinctive meanings for us’ (ibid.: 27). Viewing place in this way, it is little wonder that many of the people I spoke to were eager to assert and highlight their place within the community and thus ‘the Cathedral’. As alluded to in the quotations in this chapter, finding a place is important. However, care and concern are never far behind. Returning to how people make sense of community in Durham Cathedral, there are two key elements. The first is the deep affection and connection people have collectively cultivated in their own and others’ experience of place. As Catherine Degnen argues, ‘place works not just to tie people as individuals to places, but . . . it also works to tie individuals to each other’ (2016: 1650). Secondly, there is a collective sense of care and concern for everything that happens in and impacts Durham Cathedral. In short, there is an eagerness to care for and cultivate ‘the Cathedral’, ‘the Cathedral’ being everyone and everything that works towards the cultivation and care of a ‘Cathedral’ collective. Finally, I want to highlight a particular concern within the community, the financial cost associated with running the Cathedral. In an increasingly competitive heritage market, in which cathedrals cannot simply be places of worship, running a cathedral is extremely expensive. Indeed, the economy of the Cathedral was often mentioned as a major source of concern, not only for the Chapter Clerk but for the community as a whole. Whilst the ‘commercialization’ of the Cathedral caused concern, cathedrals must make money in order to continue operating. In trying to make sense of the role community plays in relation to this concern, I turn to Stephen Gudeman (2010), who, in discussing the 2008

38  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

financial crisis, sets out five overlapping value spheres, where value domains and habits are actioned at different levels of the economy. Of particular interest is the first value domain: house. Durham Cathedral sits firmly within the house economy, which encompasses everything from foraging and hunting communities to estates and manors. House economies often rely on multiple streams of revenue to achieve a level of self-sufficiency, building on the community’s joint efforts and being sustained ‘less by task specialization than by the combined or merged work of its members’ (ibid.: 4). Such an economy is dependent on sharing and reciprocity. Care and cultivation emerge as a key part of how the Cathedral operates, relying on a joint effort by the community to support the economy of Durham Cathedral. Furthermore, in seeking to expand economically, with a view to securing the Cathedral’s future, the ideological effect serves to ‘make plural and conflicting values commensurable’ (ibid.: 5). As will become apparent throughout this book, resolving these conflicting values is a process of constant negotiation within the community. However, as Gudeman suggests, ‘market expansion can also lead to the debasement of community in the sense that the common interests that link people are not only fractured but also transformed to calculated self-interest’ (ibid.). In this sense, the issues associated with how the Cathedral should finance itself without charging an entrance fee or relying more heavily on the community begin to take shape, highlighting the difficult situations in which cathedrals with vibrant communities find themselves. Between maintaining the community and common interest (i.e. a sense of communal effort in the care and cultivation of ‘the Cathedral’), on the one hand, and a desire to expand (securing the financial future of the building) on the other, there is a danger of straying towards calculated self-interest and a risk of fracturing the community. As Gudeman rightly points out, ‘markets are never autonomous but always draw on mutuality or social relationship for their construction, even if they also deny and debase that foundation’ (ibid.). In negotiating this danger, the Cathedral Chapter draws on different parts of the community and values (for example, the gospel values or those of the Benedictine monastic order of hospitality and welcome) to help guide their decision-making in relation to how to finance the Cathedral. With both entrance fees and commercialization being key concerns for many parts of the community, negotiation becomes a key aspect of life. In negotiation, the way separate groups function both in and with the building is crucial. As the Chapter Clerk suggested, ‘it’s how we work together that is the challenge . . . we need to be like the old cliché “singing from the same hymn sheet”, but we often don’t.’

Chapter 2

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’



Introduction The finding of a place in Durham Cathedral is important not just for the economic continuation of the building but also for the community’s well-being and continuity. Having a place gives rise to a desire to care for and cultivate ‘the Cathedral’. In considering the economic pressures on the Cathedral, along with the drive towards commercialization in an increasingly competitive heritage market and the high number of visitors, it is easy to forget that Durham Cathedral is a fully operational church. Thus, there is Morning Prayer, Evensong and at least one Holy Communion at the Cathedral every single day. In total, the Cathedral hosts over 1,400 services each year. From the outset of my fieldwork, the shape religion took in Durham Cathedral intrigued me greatly. During services, religion seemed to be self-assured, consistent and well structured. It had a rhythm to it. People knew what they had to do: when to stand, when to sit, what to say and when to say it. Outside of services, however, religion was never quite so self-assured. I would often spend time sitting in the Galilee Chapel, a small chapel at the western end of the building. It is a light and airy space and it is the location of the shrine of the Venerable Bede. At the foot of the shrine is a prayer card and a place to kneel and pray. Whenever I sat in the chapel, I would watch as people approached the shrine; often they would stand at an awkward distance from the card, just close enough to read it but far enough away that they did not look like they were praying. Time and again, religion

40  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

outside of services took similar, awkward, unassured shapes. As a topic of conversation, it was regularly avoided. When people did discuss religion, they would contradict themselves as they revealed their beliefs and seemed to struggle to consolidate these beliefs. In writing about the margins of religion, Frances Pine and João PinaCabral (2008) point out that it is becoming increasingly difficult to make simple connections between modernity and secularism, particularly as it would seem that many wars today are based not on political ideology but rather on differing religious views. In the context of cathedrals, then, conceiving of religion as existing neatly within the pocketed spaces of services, wholly separate from the more secular activities in cathedrals, ignores the processes of negotiation that occur continually within these buildings. Religion can be considered a byword for experimentation and exploration in these marginal spaces, sometimes explored delicately and sometimes not so delicately. As the ethnographic examples in this chapter demonstrate, people find space within Durham Cathedral to bend, twist and shape their unique sense of religion, exploring the boundaries of the space and their beliefs. A discussion of religion in modern cathedrals, as it is experienced in the everyday, should not limit itself to the prescribed religion of services but should also detail the presence of religion in the margins, in dark corners, in damp undercrofts on cold November mornings and in the differences between individuals. In exploring religion in the margins of Durham Cathedral, spaces/places emerge as areas of discovery and experimentation, and trial and error, as laboratories not only of the soul but also of community.

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’ It was a cold, quiet Thursday morning in the cathedral undercroft. I was volunteering as part of the LEGO Cathedral build. Two of my fellow volunteers, Jules and Les, were standing around the LEGO Cathedral, considering changes that needed to be made, whilst I sat with Ken at a small table to one side where individual modules were built before being added to the LEGO Cathedral. Reclining in my chair, I listened as Ken browsed the morning paper, making comments on various stories. It was a slow morning, and eventually, the Chaplain of the day strode through the cloister doorway, wearing a long black cassock and clutching a carrier bag. ‘Morning’, he said cheerfully as he set down his carrier bag on the table. ‘It’s awfully quiet today, isn’t it?’ ‘I’d be careful what you say to him’, Ken said from behind his newspaper. ‘He’s an anthropologist. You’ll end up in that little black book of his if you’re not careful.’

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’  •  41

He folded down one side of his newspaper to reveal a smile before disappearing behind it again. Perching himself on the edge of the table, the Chaplain began to question me on my research. When I had finished explaining what I was doing, he thoughtfully looked up at the ceiling and began to share his views: Well, the Cathedral has really changed over the past fifty years, you know. I mean, I’m retired now, but when I was younger, during the 1960s, the place was absolutely dead! The bookshop was out in the cloister, but mainly students and academics used that. There was never anything happening in here, no signs explaining what things were, no restaurant. But when I came back here eighteen months ago, I was totally shocked. There is a buzzing community here now, and I couldn’t believe how many volunteers this place has – there are hundreds!

As our conversation continued, I became aware of two women standing in the middle of the undercroft, close to the module-building table. After  lingering for a while, one of the women stepped forward and shyly interjected, ‘Erm, excuse me’. I thought she wanted to buy a LEGO brick, but she addressed the Chaplain: ‘Erm, I was wondering if you could help  me?’ She  seemed nervous and uncomfortable, and my curiosity was piqued. ‘Oh yes, of course, I’ll help if I can’, the Chaplain said with a smile. ‘Well, you see, the thing is that, well . . . Well, I’m not religious but my granny just died and, well, I wondered if you could bless her rings for me?’ She held up her right hand and pointed to two rings on her ring finger. ‘Well, of course! Don’t you worry. We’ll get you sorted out no problem!’ the Chaplain replied, turning to pick up his carrier bag. ‘Well, duty calls. I guess I’ll see you around. Are you here all day?’ I told him that I would be. He smiled and headed back out towards the cloister, talking with the two women. According to Church of England statistics, regular church attendance has been steadily declining, with average adult weekly attendance down 13 per cent and average Sunday attendance down 16 per cent between 2008 and 2018. In cathedrals, however, attendance numbers at midweek services doubled in the ten years between 2003 and 2013, rising from 7,500 to 15,000, whilst weekend numbers increased slightly from 15,600 to 15,900, though increases have levelled off since 2013. Additionally, visitor numbers have been consistently between nine and ten million each year between 2008 and 2018. When asked about this trend on a podcast (recorded by the Anglican publisher Church House), Bishop of Bristol Vivienne Faull, then Dean of York Minster, suggested that cathedrals allowed

42  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

people to come in from the edges. If I take a Eucharist at 12.30 in the middle of the week in the nave of York Minster, there will be a lot of people who just slide in from the sides. It’s much more difficult to slide in a parish church because everyone in the village is watching. It’s not so much about anonymity: it’s about feeling there’s a journey that you can travel on which doesn’t require huge steps. It just requires one little step, and I think that’s very important. (Davies 2014)

Echoing the difficulties in the relationship between modernity and secularism highlighted by Pine and Pina-Cabral (2008), Lois Lee argues that perhaps modernity is not secular after all and that although religion has come to be seen as increasingly marginalized, this might not actually be the case (2015: 1). Lee posits that society is moving beyond secularism, whilst religion, too, is transforming; she suggests that we are living in a ‘post-secular’ age (ibid.: 2) in which ‘unbelief ’ can be as diverse as belief (Davie 2015: 77). In such a world, cathedrals provide important spaces of experimentation, creating complex interrelationships between the secular and the sacred. Lee argues that ‘adjectives such as “a-religious”, “post-religious” or “indifferent to religion”’, used in what she defines as ‘classic secularization’, do little to explain what being secular really means to individuals, instead setting secularization in opposition to what religion is (2015: 9). The true nature of people’s beliefs is far more complex, as was inadvertently highlighted by the woman who wanted to have her rings blessed when she said to the Chaplain, ‘I’m not religious but . . .’. Grace Davie’s notion of ‘believing without belonging’ holds that although many people in Britain have little to no involvement with a religious institution, this does not mean that those people do not have a belief in God. In short, whilst belief seems to persist, belonging is in decline (Davie 1990: 455). Some weeks later I discussed the woman wishing to have her rings blessed with a member of the clergy, who commented on this declining sense of belonging. There is more to religion than just being a part of a community in the sense that Durkheim might suggest. So, when people say that they aren’t religious but wish to have rings blessed, perhaps what they are really saying is that they don’t belong to a religious community.

While the woman may indeed have felt that she did not belong to a religious community, another question arises: why did she see Durham Cathedral as a space in which she could enter into religion in a moment when she needed it? In further developing the idea of ‘believing without belonging’, Davie introduces the concept of ‘vicarious religion’. Vicarious religion relies on

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’  •  43

the idea that the ‘smaller group is doing something for the larger one, who are  aware (if only implicitly) of this relationship’ (Davie 2015: 81). In short,  the Church maintains religion through day-to-day worship on behalf of the wider society, performing religious duties for people who define themselves as otherwise ‘not religious’, but turn to religion when they require it. In this way, many of the cathedrals’ roles in wider society can be seen in terms of vicarious religion. For example, Canon Rosalind Brown explained that during times of national distress, such as in the wake of the death of Princess Diana, the Cathedral experienced an increase in visitor numbers. Similarly, when I was volunteering as a steward, visitors spoke to me about coming to the Cathedral following the death of a loved one, despite not being regular churchgoers; they came on an ‘as-needed’ basis. In light of both ‘believing without belonging’ and ‘vicarious religion’, a picture begins to emerge in which individuals, though they do not ‘belong’ to a Church, maintain a belief of some description, which, in times of need such as after the death of a loved one, leads them back to places of worship. Churches, particularly cathedrals like Durham Cathedral, act as beacons of the local area. While many in the wider community may not engage with these buildings regularly, there are deep connections between County Durham and Durham Cathedral. These connections are most commonly  articulated in the idea that the Cathedral belongs to the people and  is held  in trust by the Chapter. As part of this connection,  the Cathedral  does  more than simply carry out religious services for  those  present. Rather,  the Cathedral  believes  on behalf of County Durham, ‘holding the  faith’ for  the entire county (Davie 2015: 82). In maintaining this position, cathedrals offer a space to go to in times of need. As Stephen Platten suggests, cathedrals can act as a ‘halfway house’ in which ‘people can belong, but in a more “arm’s-length manner”’ (2006: 5). They offer spaces that one can move about in and explore without being viewed with suspicion; this creates a level of comfort allowing people to reflect on their beliefs at their own pace and at arm’s length. As one clergy member put it, ‘We’re not asking people to sign on the dotted line as fully paid up members on entry. That isn’t what cathedrals are about in the modern world.’ Upon entering Durham Cathedral following her grandmother’s death, the woman wanted those who maintained belief to bless her rings. While choosing to identify as ‘not religious’, she did view Durham Cathedral as a place where she could dip into religion in the knowledge that although  she  did  not  necessarily belong to a religious community, the Cathedral was a place in which religion was maintained and could be ­utilized when needed.

44  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

Finding Common Ground Whilst those who do not regularly participate in the community come to find religion when they feel they need it, it is also true that many who are involved on a regular basis hold a wide and varied range of beliefs and there are even non-believers. Although religion was often politely avoided as a topic of conversation around the margins of the Cathedral, when it did arise, tensions between different views had to be negotiated. In such instances, common ground was sought as the boundaries of the Cathedral’s religious and nonreligious spaces and activities were tacitly explored. This was the case, for instance, when Ken and Les, two volunteers from different but overlapping areas of Cathedral life, began to question the reasons why each of them volunteered and, in doing so, struggled to find common ground with each other. On a quiet March morning of volunteering at the LEGO build, Les, Ken and I had begun to talk about Lent and what I might give up. ‘Well, it’s no good asking me,’ Les said. ‘You not religious, like, Les?’ asked Ken, the surprise in his voice clear. ‘Well, of course I’m not,’ he replied. ‘Really? Well, why are you here doing this then? I thought it was for Christian charity?’ Ken asked inquiringly. ‘I’m here for this,’ he said, gesturing at the model of the LEGO Cathedral, ‘and to help the museum.’ ‘The Cathedral isn’t a museum,’ Ken replied firmly. ‘Well, they’re going to be building one here,’ Les responded, referring to the ‘Open Treasure Project for which the LEGO Cathedral was helping to raise funds. ‘The Cathedral isn’t a museum. If you want to go to a museum, there are plenty around,’ Ken repeated. ‘And I’m here because I enjoy it,’ Les continued. Ken then explained that although Durham Cathedral is a place people often visit, it is not a ‘visitor attraction’ but a place of worship. Les agreed that it is a place of worship, but said that it is also a visitor attraction. Stark differences like this were commonly encountered during my time in Durham Cathedral, and although it was never readily acknowledged by individuals, a few questions soon revealed vast differences in the reasons why people volunteered. Yet while it may initially seem as though Ken and Les shared very little common ground in their view of Durham Cathedral and the reasons why they volunteered, the building itself plays a key role in creating commonality between those guided by their religion and those who profess not to have religion. Returning to belief, David Morgan argues that the academic study of religion in the modern West is based on the question ‘what are its teachings?’

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’  •  45

(2010: 1). However, in asking this question, religion is reduced to a set of declarations, negating ‘the social and interpersonal relations that characterize practitioners of a religion’ (ibid.: 6). Perhaps, then, viewing belief as a ubiquitous feeling in a community (ibid.: 7) is more conducive to understanding commonalities. Thinking of belief and non-belief as clear opposites within the Cathedral does not accurately reflect the reality of the lived space. Rather, in the lived experience of Durham Cathedral, ideas of belief and non-belief at times are questioned, whether openly or privately, and existential questions relating purpose, meaning and what happens after we die can be considered (Lee 2015). In such instances, ideas of non-belief are considered to be as messy and uncertain as belief in Durham Cathedral. Highlighting the diversity of non-belief, Lee shows that by focusing on ‘existential cultures’ – humanism, agnosticism, the anti-existential (those who do not have any interest in existential or theological questions) – rather than simply ‘ultimate questions’, academics can provide ‘a more roundly qualitative description (the existential)’ of the meeting between religion and the secular, as opposed to simple comparative (ultimate) ones (2015: 183). This approach draws attention to the lived experience of belief and nonbelief, moving away from simple comparative dichotomies and towards the experiential, qualitative negotiation of ideas and meaning. Indeed, as Tatiana Schnell and William J.F. Keenan (2011: 75) argue, what may once have been considered incommensurable worlds of meaning and belief share a common ground of meaning and commitment within the context of the lived experience. This meaning and commitment may arise from existentially different places, but it is equally ambivalent and experimental and it is always negotiated. However, it is in the material, external and practical actions (Collins 2012: 247) that meaning and commitment find common ground in the cultivation of ‘the Cathedral’, bringing everyone together for a common purpose. As David Morgan suggests, belief can be understood as ‘voluntaristic’, as a ‘necessary or wilful performance of certain duties’ (2010: 7), such as those required for the cultivation of ‘the Cathedral’. This commonality of belief and non-belief is also reflected throughout the building as memorials do not only remember religiously important figures but also County Durham as a whole. Personal and regional heritage is reflected in services such as the Durham Miners’ Gala service and in the Miners’ Memorial Book. The region’s sacrifice in war is reflected in the Durham Light Infantry Chapel and the memorial books for those who died. Through both individual and community/social activities, the religious and the secular are present not only in narratives (Collins 2008: 150), but also in the practices of the Cathedral as belief and non-belief co-exist side by side.

46  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

As a result of this co-existence, diverse views often arise in unusual settings. For example, one evening at the tomb of St Bede, a volunteer tour guide turned to the group and said: ‘Now here we are at my favourite bit. Before my retirement, I was a physicist and am not given over to the religious parts of this building. However, this man, the Venerable Bede, was not just a monk but a great mind of his time, and I remain eternally in awe of him.’ Such moments demonstrate the unique and diverse co-existence of belief and non-belief that is negotiated within Durham Cathedral. Similarly, when asked what she felt the Cathedral meant to people, Canon Rosalind Brown highlighted the space that people find within the building both as a community of the Cathedral and as a county: Well, it’s a place of Christian worship to which all people are welcome no matter what their faith, but I think it also has a role in providing a focus for the region, and a sense of identity, which you can see through the Durham Miners’ Gala. I also think that it gives a sense of hope, given that it’s an area of economic deprivation, and the fact that the Cathedral is still there is something to be proud of. Also, this is a place of sanctuary. We know that from all of the stories we hear. But when Diana died, when the queen does die, when the London bombings happened, Durham Cathedral is where people come, and that’s somehow instinctive. It feels like when there is a national tragedy like that, people want to be together, and cathedrals offer a place in which to do it, and although we’re a Christian building, Durham Cathedral also has the capacity to function as a neutral building.

The Cathedral is also spread implicitly throughout the county. Those who drive into County Durham are greeted by roadside signs that read ‘Welcome to County Durham, Land of the Prince Bishops’. Throughout the city of Durham, there are symbols of the Cathedral, in particular the Northern Saints of Cuthbert and Bede. The pectoral cross of St Cuthbert hangs above streets, emblazoned on bins and lamp posts. Schools, shopping  centres  and  even car parks carry the names of the Northern Saints or otherwise reference Durham Cathedral. Almost every day during my fieldwork, I saw children drawing pictures of the building, their coats and bags  stacked against the ancient columns of the nave. I watched as they listened to stories told by the guides and ate their packed lunches in the cloisters. At weekends, more children would arrive with their families. All of these activities helped to draw the wider community and the Cathedral closer together. When viewed in its totality, Durham Cathedral is experienced as far more than just a place of worship. It is a building that provides space for both the individual and the community, for both the secular and the sacred, for Anglican and other needs.

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’  •  47

These sentiments were echoed in a conversation I had with the Dean, Michael Sadgrove. During our conversation, I explained how the building seemed to respond to and encourage singing, particularly during Evensong (see chapter 4). In response, he related his experience of the building as a place of both the Spirit of God and the spirit of humanity. As such, it houses both religion – faith in God – and the spirit of humanity, that ambiguous, uncertainty surrounding existential questions that many ponder, with some searching for meaning through religion and others through other means. In allowing that space, the Cathedral becomes a space of experimentation and creativity in which people can explore their boundaries and ultimately come together in the spirit of humanity. The Dean said: I experience the building as responsive, which is to say ever-changing. It’s also catalytic in that it inspires ideas. It’s a workshop. It’s an aircraft hangar from which machines start flying. It’s a laboratory where things can be tried out and tested. It’s a concert hall. It’s an arts centre. It’s a temple. I could go on and on. It’s a place that brings people together, so it’s somewhere that things really creative can happen . . . And when you say the building loves Evensong, you’re right, it does, and perhaps it loves the sound of Evensong more than we do. That would be difficult, but I think maybe it does, in a kind of mystical way, because it’s not just a frame or a matrix within which created activity happens; it’s the place of the spirit, that bit that you can hardly put into words but you know it when you experience it. That is the gift that the building is. The organism is a spirit; whether it’s a capital ‘S’, the Spirit of God, or a small ‘s’, the spirit of humanity, that is what it is.

Several times during my fieldwork, the ability of Durham Cathedral to provide space for the many different needs of those who visit was made clear, and the importance of this was stressed in conversations. Similarly, the Chapter Clerk would emphasize that Durham Cathedral had a duty to be there for people, regardless of whether they were religious. As Henri Lefebvre sought to show, ‘(Social) space is a (social) product’ (1991: 26, emphasis in the  original). This highlights the similarities between cathedrals of the medieval period, which served as strong anchoring points, and cathedrals today, which also serve as anchor points, for both the religious community who use the building and the people of the wider county, who relate to the building in diverse ways. As the Dean’s comments show, not only do cathedrals offer a space in which diverse communities can grow, they actively encourage such communities to do so, creating both a ‘laboratory for the soul’, as Jeremy Fletcher (2006: 39) calls cathedrals, and laboratories for society, as believers and non-believers come and participate in cathedral life alongside one another. Finally, as Lefebvre comments, social space is ‘at once result and cause, product, and producer; it is also a stake, a locus of projects

48  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

and actions deployed as part of specific strategies’ (1991: 142–43). As discussed in the previous chapter, the relationship between Durham Cathedral and its community is based upon mutual need and creation, in which all parts of the Cathedral community are invested.

Conclusion We live in a world that is becoming ‘post-secular’ (Lee 2015: 2), a world in which what we believe and do not believe comes in many different forms. Cathedrals like Durham are responding to these changes, opening up to provide spaces not only for religious activities but also for the wide array of activities that believers and non-believers are increasingly seeking. Whether as a space in which to have the rings of deceased loved ones blessed, a space in which to mourn collectively, as a space in which to experiment with belief or simply a space in which to belong to a community, cathedrals occupy an important role in the wider society. While some individuals may not regularly attend church, this does not mean that they have no belief or curiosity regarding existential questions of life, such as what happens to us when we die. Although such questions may not occupy our minds regularly, most of us do think of them from time to time; cathedrals offer spaces in which people can explore these questions further, both privately or with others, for example, a chaplain or a cathedral listener (that is, a volunteer trained to talk and listen to people who wish to discuss difficult issues). Thus, cathedrals must be intrinsically open spaces in which people, religious or not, are encouraged to find a place and in which the clergy freely believe on behalf of others, holding the faith until it is needed by individuals or society as a whole (Davie 2015: 82). In this way, cathedrals act as beacons in the local area, with deep connections between county and cathedral being maintained as the Cathedral carries out a subtle yet vital role in society – that of holding the faith – but also, perhaps more importantly, offers an open space in which existential questions can be explored when we are faced with them. As Lee argues, ‘modernity may not be secular’ after all; perhaps we are living in a ‘post-secular’ age (2015: 1–2) in which belief and non-belief are no longer clearly defined opposites. This emerging role of cathedrals is implicitly understood by many of the people employed at Durham, as Canon Rosalind Brown highlighted when she suggested that the Cathedral provided a focus and sense of identity for the region. Similarly, the Chapter Clerk saw it as the building’s duty to be an open space for non-belief as much as belief because, as we have seen in this chapter, the two are not in opposition to one another and are as varied and uncertain as each other. Indeed, the Chaplain’s decision not to question the

‘I’m Not Religious but . . .’  •  49

woman with the rings further about her religious outlook, instead of which he announced that ‘duty calls’, highlights this view of the Cathedral’s duty to wider society. Therefore, whilst at times it may seem like distinctions such as those in the discussion between Ken and Les affect the coherence of the community, the commonalities far outweigh the differences between people. Whilst Ken views his voluntary activities as a religious duty and Les does not, and the negotiation between them can be difficult at times, they both work hard towards the same end point: the continuation of the community and Durham Cathedral, a building that in turn serves the wider society. As the Chapter Clerk told me in a conversation we had on a visit I made to the Cathedral after my fieldwork had ended, ‘Durham Cathedral, we, and the building, have a duty to be there for people, not just up here on the peninsula in these beautiful surroundings but also out there in the city and county, we need to reach out to them.’

Chapter 3

Pilgrims and Tourists



Introduction From members of the congregation, volunteers and frequent visitors to tourists visiting the Cathedral for the first time on a day trip, the Chapter and clergy always strongly emphasized that everyone was a pilgrim to Durham Cathedral. In many conversations, particularly with Cathedral staff members and members of the Chapter and clergy, increasing visitor numbers and, in particular, the number of tourists were of central importance. A connection was always made between increasing visitor numbers and the potential money they might spend in or donate to Durham Cathedral. While this is an understandable concern for those whose duty it is to maintain the Cathedral, I was often left with the sense that the insistence on seeing all visitors as pilgrims was an attempt to overlay a growing financial awareness of the importance tourists play in developing cashflow for Durham Cathedral with a religious perspective. ‘It isn’t anything new, this idea of pilgrims or squeezing them for money,’ a volunteer tour guide explained as we walked through the Chapel of the Nine Altars at the east end of the Cathedral. The whole point of having a Chapel of the Nine Altars is so that they could accommodate large numbers of pilgrims. With nine different altars, you have nine different points at which to give alms – donations – usually of money. So really, this idea of attracting tourists for the money they bring is old hat in this

Pilgrims and Tourists • 51

place. It’s just a matter of perspective. And we know it was big business here because not only is it well documented, but they’ve recently been excavating the bottom of the river around here and found pilgrimage tokens and little souvenirs that people must have been buying and taking away with them.

Today, the idea of pilgrimage extends beyond an exclusive focus on St Cuthbert or the Venerable Bede to almost all areas of cathedral life. Some examples of reasons for visiting Durham Cathedral given by people I spoke to included: to listen to the choir sing, to see the architecture or to revisit places they remembered from their university days. Many people came to see the LEGO Cathedral build and many visited because they had seen the Cathedral in the Harry Potter films. These were some of the many reasons why people travel to see the Cathedral, although, as I will discuss later in this chapter, many people felt uncomfortable about being seen as a pilgrim, as this did not reflect their true intentions. As I will show, comments made by individuals, such as the Chapter Clerk, demonstrate that this acceptance of tourism is still flourishing within the governing body of the Cathedral and so perhaps the idea of viewing tourists through a religious lens, as pilgrims, has eased the concerns of the Chapter. Indeed, opening a shop and a restaurant to turn a profit is one thing, but viewing visitors as potential customers in a place of worship can cause some discomfort. However, viewing all visitors as pilgrims risks concealing the diversity of visitors to the building. I argue that this diversity and the various reasons for visiting should be embraced as an important component of the character of Durham Cathedral.

Raising Money Tourism is important to Durham Cathedral for two key reasons. Firstly, the welcoming of a wide range of visitors accords with the spiritual aims of the Cathedral. Secondly, the Cathedral needs to be able to fund itself, and the revenue brought in by large numbers of visitors giving donations and spending money in the shop and restaurant is an important financial resource. However, as highlighted by my conversations with Pat (chapter 1), the Cathedral has not always been as open and receptive as it is now. I was therefore less surprised than I might have been when, during a conversation with the Chapter Clerk, he shared the following about his first few weeks in his post at Durham Cathedral: I didn’t know Durham that well and so went into the tourist information office, which doesn’t exist now, and in there was this leaflet on Durham Cathedral. I was quite shocked when I read it because basically what it said

52  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

was, ‘Durham Cathedral is a place of worship, it is not a tourist attraction’, and this was in the tourist information office. I thought, ‘Wow, how not to attract people to come and visit.’ It then said, ‘These are the times of the services’, and nothing else. It was a massive over-simplification because I know from other documents I was picking up at the same time that Durham Cathedral was the most visited tourist attraction in County Durham, with six hundred thousand visitors a year, and here is a document that obviously has the Chapter’s seal of approval that it is not a tourist attraction. In the past, the Cathedral was resistant to the World Heritage Site, but it’s not something that you can choose for it not to be; you might as well embrace what it’s all about, and that’s what we try to do.

Over the years since the arrival of the Chapter Clerk, who retired following my fieldwork, the sense and approach to tourism at Durham Cathedral has changed dramatically. Although the Cathedral still has, and always will have, Christian worship as its central focus, it has embraced its non-religious appeal as a tourist attraction and place of local and national heritage. As the Chapter Clerk often explained to me, it is sometimes difficult to keep a focus on the dynamic nature of the building and community: ‘Is it a business or is it a church? Is it a tourist attraction or is it a place of worship? What is it? And sometimes people come and say it’s either one or the other and then fall foul of the fact that it’s all of these things.’ The many reasons why people visit Durham Cathedral were often raised by the visitors themselves, who were keen to explain what had driven them to come and visit the Cathedral: the architecture, the tomb of Saint Cuthbert or the Venerable Bede, or the historical relics. It was also not uncommon for local residents to come with family for birthday days out. ‘They come for all sorts of reasons now, you know, not just the services,’ one steward explained as we watched a group of young adults in the crossing who were pointing upward. When I first started as a steward, and this might be about twenty years ago now, you used to get the basic reasons – religion, history and architecture – or you might have a family visiting some students from the university, but now, well, I’m sick of pointing out where they filmed Harry Potter. I always say to them, you’ve got a doctor of the church in Bede at one end and St Cuthbert at the other, a thousand years of prayers in the walls, cutting-edge technology to build it, and you want to see where they filmed Harry Potter?

He laughed as he said this, shaking his head. ‘What do you think of them having movies filmed here?’ I asked. Well, I mean, I get it. I understand how difficult it is for the Cathedral to make enough money, but I just worry, you know, that all of this richness of religion

Pilgrims and Tourists • 53

and history might get lost, or at least buried beneath all the rest of it. Don’t forget that the story of Durham Cathedral is also our story, our heritage. What do you think about it?

‘I think I’m probably in the same boat as you,’ I said. ‘Obviously, money is an important part of life and the upkeep of the building, and it would be easy to just say yes to having lots of movies filmed here, but there are the intangible parts of the building to protect.’ ‘Exactly, it’s about balance,’ he said, leaning forward and smiling at the approaching group of young people, who asked how much it was to climb the central tower. ‘It’s £5 each,’ he replied. They all smiled excitedly and began pulling out £5 notes and handing them to my fellow steward, who counted the heads and then counted the money before slipping the £35 into the cash register. I also smiled, pondering the ease with which established means of money-making in the building occurred whilst new avenues were often seen as posing a risk to the balance in the Cathedral. In the same week as this conversation, I learnt that the Cathedral had been in discussions about filming scenes for a new movie production of Macbeth starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, with filming also taking place at nearby Bamburgh Castle. However, considering filming eventually took place at Ely Cathedral, it would seem that an agreement was not reached. A few weeks later, I was wandering around the cloister with an employee of the Cathedral on a warm Tuesday morning, talking about the idea of balance that had been introduced to me by the steward. The employee said: These big Hollywood movies, you know, they bring in supreme amounts of money, but they also cause real difficulty for the Chapter. They really have two main concerns; the first is for the religious integrity of the building, and that burden isn’t a light one when you consider the continuous worship that has gone on here. The second is the financial stability of the building. The running of the Cathedral doesn’t get any cheaper; it only gets more expensive. Like the conservation work that needs to be undertaken, which, by the way, is always more extensive than people realize. How many people knew that the seventeenth-century drainage system needed to be replaced? All of that comes at an expense. One way of covering that expense is through things like endowments, large sums of money left to the Cathedral. They are a big source of income. Then there are the donations and things of the nature.

I asked if the Cathedral is able to cover its daily running costs or did these large donations go towards the day-to-day bills? It’s a complicated picture. The Cathedral is run like a business with bank overdrafts and auditors for the books, etc., but yes, it covers the daily running

54  •  Life with Durham Cathedral

costs, but it isn’t what you’d call a comfortable margin. That’s why there’s this perennial conversation about charging an entrance fee. There’s been a lot of research and thinking time put into the idea, and I’m sure you’ll have come across the idea as a popular discussion topic amongst the community.

As I mentioned in chapter 1, the idea of charging an entrance fee was indeed a central topic of discussion and everyone in the community had an opinion on the matter. Though it was certainly not a new topic of conversation, in 1994, an article by Ken G. Willis entitled ‘Paying for Heritage: What Price for Durham Cathedral’ examined the impact of charging an entrance fee, as well as the effect of simply increasing the recommended donation amount. The article makes for an interesting read, with information, for example, on the price of climbing the tower, which was £1 per adult and 50p per child in the early 1990s. It also outlines that the general maintenance costs of the Cathedral at the time were £200,000 per year and highlights that the Cathedral had closed the Monks’ Dormitory to allow for work to be undertaken. ‘When finished,’ the article reads, ‘the Monks’ Dormitory will house the Cathedral Library as well as providing space for temporary exhibitions’ (Willis 1994: 269). During my time in Durham Cathedral, similar work was being undertaken in the Dormitory as part of the Open Treasure Project, with the aim of updating the space with modern technology that would make it more suitable for displaying delicate artefacts. This highlights the repetitious cycles that spaces must go through in order to ensure that they remain relevant and usable, particularly when, as in the case of the Open Treasure Project, the aim is to facilitate temporary displays worthy of international renown, with the finest, most delicate items being kept in climate-controlled environments. Willis (1994: 269) also suggests that work in the Dormitory was expected to cost around half a million pounds. It was anticipated that the Open Treasure Project would be a £10 million project, but the view of the Cathedral was that this would be an investment in the building, its history, its touristic appeal and local heritage. Returning to my conversation in the cloister, the Cathedral employee said: The Cathedral, the community and County Durham as a whole don’t want an entrance fee, and I think, yes, there would probably be an uproar if there were ever a fee placed at the door, but in a slightly harsh but pragmatic way, they aren’t the ones who need to find ways to pay for all of this, so it isn’t an easy task. But even if there was a charge at the door, would it raise extra funds? Yes. Would it result in a lower footfall? Yes, probably. And therein lies the rub, you see, because you need to add to this equation the Cathedral’s commitment to traditional Benedictine values, such as welcoming everyone as though they were Jesus himself. I’m fairly certain we wouldn’t be asking Jesus for an

Pilgrims and Tourists • 55

entrance fee and turning him away if he couldn’t pay. On the other hand, the Cathedral has just brokered the sale of some land it owns. That land may have been in the Cathedral’s possession for several centuries. It has brought a substantial amount of money, but it isn’t a solution because eventually, you run out of stuff to sell, and then what? So it is a difficult topic and a lot of effort is being put into not having a fee, but I think the line between a fee and no fee will have to be blurred in the future.

Pilgrims or Tourists As I have pointed out, the negotiation of the Cathedral’s need to raise funds was often played against the Chapter’s desire to maintain strong links with its Benedictine past, for example, welcoming everyone as though they were Jesus. A second principle that was regularly mentioned in those same conversations and interviews was the desire to view all visitors to the Cathedral as pilgrims. The emphasis on Benedictine ideas of hospitality combined with the need to increase tourist numbers to ensure a steady cash flow and the desire to view all visitors as pilgrims gave rise to difficult dynamics within the building. Indeed, the tension between maintaining a Benedictine approach and the Cathedral’s cash flow was alluded to in an interview with a member of the Cathedral Chapter: I think there is a bit of romanticism about the Benedictine heritage. I don’t think we should play at being monks, but, on the other hand, we do emphasize as a virtue the concept of hospitality. There are some costings in that, and a lot of Cathedrals are charging for entry, but we try to resist it at a great cost and hard work to us. We try to raise money in many other ways, and that’s partly to do with hospitality. We try to resist seeing tourists as customers or as visitors. We want to see them as pilgrims and even friends, and as potentially Christian people, and so the welcome is slightly inspired by that Benedictine stuff, but I think that’s about as far as it goes. We also have an excellent marketing team who respond to all sorts of requests. It’s a really difficult job because the diary has to be juggled between all sorts of things. But we have used the building for things like Lumiere, which doesn’t really have anything to do with our core business of religion, but it does draw in a lot of money for the shops and businesses in the region, and Durham Cathedral is a big part of that. For us, not to take part in that would seem churlish and unhelpful to the regional economy. So we do consciously think about our role in the wider regional economy in terms of tourism and other ‘feel-good factor’ things. We constantly think of our role as encouraging arts events and concerts. It’s a lot of hard work sometimes, with the vergers having to clear the chairs away, ready for a service or something. Sometimes it’s not to do

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with our core purpose of worship but with our artistic side of life, which we do as our duty to the wider region. So we do, at some cost, try and share the building, allowing that mutual involvement in the building. Because, going back to the Benedictine thing, this should be a place that extends a welcome to everybody.

The Cathedral’s view that all visitors are pilgrims, for many I spoke to, jars with the idea that Durham Cathedral is an all-accommodating space for believers and non-believers alike. ‘Why should I be seen as a pilgrim?’ one person I spoke to asked. I don’t come here that often, maybe a couple of times a year, but I don’t go in for all that religion stuff, I come to see the building and the history. This building is part of the history of the North East. I don’t see why me coming to spend time here should make me a pilgrim.

In response to these comments, I questioned whether being a pilgrim had to be a religious activity: Well, it’s the connotations, I think. I’ll bet half the people in the coffee shop there or climbing the tower aren’t religious. I know people who work over at the library on Palace Green, they sometimes come and just sit in here for some peace and quiet. Does that make them pilgrims? Why can’t you just come and be, instead of being pulled into some religious thing?

Although this was by far the strongest response against the idea of being seen as a pilgrim, it echoed a sentiment that had been shared by others and it reflected both the diverse reasons why people come to the Cathedral and the importance of individual needs and narratives in finding a place within the building, as I discussed earlier. However, as Ellen Badone and Sharon R. Roseman argue, maintaining strict divisions between pilgrims and tourists ‘no longer seems tenable in the shifting world of postmodern travel’ (2004: 2). While the example above highlights that the connotations of the term ‘pilgrim’ may lead individuals to consider pilgrimage to be a religious act, Daniel Cavicchi’s (1998) ethnographic work on fans of Bruce Springsteen has shown that the term ‘pilgrimage’ has expanded beyond the strictly religious, with places like Graceland (see King 1993), the home and resting place of Elvis Presley, becoming popular sites of tourism and pilgrimage. As Peter J. Margry suggests, the word ‘pilgrimage’ has ‘acquired a new semantic dimension’ as visitors discuss profane acts as pilgrimages, ‘partly because fans themselves are often aware of parallels between traditional Christian religion and their own’ (2008: 19). Whilst the act of visiting Graceland may not be seen as strictly or traditionally religious,

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the similarities between religious pilgrimages and pilgrimages to places such as Graceland are clear. In discussing why individuals come to Durham Cathedral, some described modes of pilgrimage more clearly, yet when pressed on whether they see themselves as pilgrims, they seemed hesitant to agree. For example, when I asked Rose, the elderly woman who came to the Cathedral every Thursday afternoon and bought a LEGO brick before lighting a candle for her husband, if she felt like her journey was a regular pilgrimage, she responded, ‘Well, I don’t know really. It’s just something I did with my husband and I’ve just continued to do it, but there isn’t anything particularly religious about it.’ As Grace Davie points out, cathedrals ‘deal with diverse and not always compatible constituencies . . . they are frequented by regular and irregular worshippers, pilgrims, visitors, and tourists, bearing in mind that the lines between these groups are frequently blurred’ (2006: 283). Indeed, in his analysis of the organization of the pilgrimage site at Lourdes, John Eade argues that pilgrimage sites should be seen as a co-existence of numerous groups of people and agendas, religious and otherwise (2000: 52), thus advocating that places of pilgrimage are based on acts of contestation, contradiction and opposition. Similarly, a report commissioned by the Foundation of Church Leadership and the Association of English Cathedrals on the present and future of English cathedrals concluded that ‘the distinction between tourists and pilgrims was “fuzzy”’ (2012: 14). With this ‘fuzzy’ distinction in mind, the question of whether the broad use of the term ‘pilgrim’ is useful in the context of Durham Cathedral becomes significant. As Margry states, ‘it is contraproductive to use the concept of pilgrimage as a combination term for both secular and religious phenomena, thereby turning it into much too broad a concept’ (2008: 14). As I outlined in the previous chapter, religion and non-religion within Durham Cathedral are divided by a ‘fuzzy’ line, with individuals quickly moving from one side to another, as highlighted by the example of the blessing of the ring. While someone who might define themselves as ‘not religious but . . .’ could epitomize this, it was more important that volunteers be attentive to individuals’ specific needs than concern themselves with how to categorize such individuals. A later report produced by a team of interdisciplinary researchers focusing on the contemporary experience of pilgrimage suggested that a re-examination of ‘pilgrimage terminology’ and the ways in which people who enter cathedrals can be seen as ‘potential pilgrims’ may offer an area of expansion for English cathedrals (Dyas 2017: 3). The report suggests that, in cathedrals across England, the terms ‘pilgrim’ and ‘pilgrimage’ are used ‘widely today but it is clear that many staff and volunteers often need more help in seeing how these concepts can work on the ground in providing for and approaching visitors’ (ibid.) – again highlighting a persistent drive

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towards the utilization of the terms ‘pilgrim’ and ‘pilgrimage’ as tools for understanding cathedral visitors. While I do not want to deny the importance of pilgrimage to buildings such as Durham Cathedral, I do want to acknowledge that the diversity of those who visit Durham Cathedral is a key component of what makes the building what it is. Utilizing the term ‘pilgrimage’ so broadly diminishes this important dynamic. As Eade’s (2000) analysis of Lourdes highlights,  agency  is exercised across the spectrum of visitors. Even with a high level of direction at the pilgrimage site of Lourdes, and sometimes in Durham Cathedral, pilgrims are able to exercise their will and resist power. John Eade and Michael J. Sallnow address this in the introduction to the edited volume by asserting that ‘tension and conflict are integral to this  interplay of diverse practices’ between religious and secular activities (2000: 18). Furthermore, they draw attention to the perceived temporal status of pilgrimage shrines. Referring to R.L. Stirrat’s (1984) identification of two modalities of the sacred – an ‘Eliadean’ sacred time that is both timeless and ahistorical and a ‘Durkheimian’ sacred time grounded in society and history – they argue that there is a ‘hierarchical tension between the two’ (Eade and Sallnow 2000: 14). Durham Cathedral’s importance is bound to both of these modalities of the sacred. Using the example of figures who become the focus of a religious group, Eade and Sallnow suggest that when these figures die, the Church is able to assert control over their image. In doing so, it moves the ‘cultic focus from worldly to otherworldly preoccupations’, shifting their legacy from a ‘Durkheimian sacredness into a timeless, Eliadean one’ (ibid.). However, in viewing Durham Cathedral as the shrine, as the focal point of the community instead of St Cuthbert, as was once the case, it is important to view the building as firmly grounded in both a Durkheimian sacred, in which society and its history are celebrated as an intrinsic part of the shrine – thus leading to the strong sense of ownership felt throughout County Durham – and the Eliadean as the building’s core business of religion concerns itself with the timeless, ahistorical reality of Christianity. What is of central importance here is that ‘tension and conflict are integral’ (ibid.: 18) to the everyday processes of negotiation, as is seen throughout this book. Meanings and ideas invested in the shrine are ‘determinately shaped by their political and religious, national and regional, ethnic and class backgrounds’, all coming together to build the character of the place. ‘The power of the shrine, therefore, derives in large part from its character almost as a religious void, a ritual space capable of accommodating diverse meanings and practices’ (ibid.: 14). It is also important to note that while stewards and the clergy may at times attempt to impose an ‘official

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discourse’, the centrally important characteristic of Durham Cathedral is its ability to absorb and reflect a multiplicity of discourses, both religious and otherwise, and in doing so provide a space for a huge array of people with differing requirements. With this in mind, it is important to acknowledge and embrace this ‘fuzziness’ not by attempting to look beyond it to a way in which all visitors can be seen as pilgrims, but by examining it more closely and acknowledging the diversity underlying the character of Durham Cathedral. The Cathedral’s character is informed by the social and historical background of the building and region, continually developing and changing whilst maintaining the Cathedral’s core business of religion. Thus, visitors are embraced for what they are, from tourists visiting scenes from the Harry Potter movies to children on school trips or families wandering in the nave and cloister or looking for loved ones in the memorial books. In the following three chapters, I discuss the various ways in which the space is open to visitors, regardless of their spiritual needs, to engage with the Cathedral in their own unique way. This openness is, in many ways, a key element of what Durham Cathedral is and its role in the community and wider region of County Durham. However, it is important to remember that this openness is created by the custodians of the Cathedral, namely the Chapter. Volunteers might help build a LEGO Cathedral or educate visitors on the history of the building. A person can meet friends for a coffee, find quiet after a busy day, or even sit and observe the rituals of Morning Prayer and Evensong, dabbling with the notion of religion in a more comfortable and anonymous way. In all of these examples, the important thing is that there is freedom of exploration. My central point in this book is that we live with buildings such as Durham Cathedral and not simply in them; if visitors are to be considered pilgrims, there is a risk of losing the rich fuzziness that is the reality of everyday life in Durham Cathedral – a rich fuzziness defined by conflict and tension, in which people regularly contradict themselves and move between various understandings. Although embracing this fuzziness inherently complicates any attempts to understand the community, it is, I argue, an intrinsic reality of Durham Cathedral and how the community lives with the building. Perceiving everyone as a pilgrim risks altering the way in which the Chapter views visitors and allows them the space to engage with Durham Cathedral in the manner best suited to them. There is no question that pilgrimage is an important driving factor for many individuals who come to Durham Cathedral, as has been the case since the very earliest days of the Cathedral, when pilgrims journeyed to the tomb of St Cuthbert. However, it is far more beneficial to acknowledge and appreciate the rich reality of everyday life within Durham Cathedral than it

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is to see, or attempt to see, all visitors as pilgrims. The fuzziness should be embraced as a key element of the community of Durham Cathedral, whose very character is formed by the rich diversity associated with people being allowed to freely explore and experience the building, both shaping it and being shaped by it in manifold ways.

Part II

Experiencing Durham Cathedral

Chapter 4

The Sound of Durham Cathedral



The Sound of Fieldwork During the short walk from the front door of my small room on the Market Place in the centre of Durham to the Cathedral, my mind often homed in on the sounds around me. Sound played a significant role in my life in the field. Living above a busy pub and market, I was often woken by the delivery of fruit and vegetables and the baker whose van beeped as he reversed. Lying in my bed, I would hear the greetings of the market workers as they jibed the baker about losing his parking spot to the butcher. It was a routine that I thought might kill me during my first few days of living there, but when I became accustomed to it, I left my window open to hear the sounds. At 4 am, I always seemed to hear the Cathedral bells as they tolled, which reminded me of the Cathedral’s proximity; at 4.30 am, the road sweeper swept through the marketplace, clearing away the beer bottles from the night before (back to sleep); at 5.30 am, the morning papers were delivered (back to sleep); at 6.00 am, the fruit-and-veg man arrived, followed by the baker and the butcher. By that point, I would be fully awake. Slowly the city outside my window came to life until, eventually, the individual sounds blended into a cacophony of noise. I would then roll out of bed and go about my morning routine, after which I would head out the door into the world of noise. It was a five-minute stroll to the Cathedral. I would walk across the Market Place and up Saddlers Street, a tight medieval street that banked steeply toward the top of the peninsula. The Market Place would be full of

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delivery vans and lorries, their drivers shouting at one another, ‘Back it up a bit!’, ‘Come on! You’re blocking me in!’, ‘How long are you going to be?’ Saying good morning to the pointers, a group of volunteers who stood and pointed the way to various tourist attractions, I quickly left the mechanical noise of the lorries and vans behind for the relative quiet of Saddlers Street. In Saddlers Street, radios played music as shop assistants readied outside displays and the smell of fresh coffee drifted out of the open doors of cafés. The further up Saddlers Street I climbed, the quieter the city became until finally I reached the top of the hill and Palace Green, an area of grass surrounded by ancient buildings on all sides. To the north is Durham Castle, once the home of the Prince Bishops of Durham, now student accommodation. To the east, more university buildings and the Café on the Green. To the west is Palace Green Library, part of the Durham University archive, which holds some of the Cathedral’s archival collection. Finally, to the south, directly ahead of you as you reach the top of the hill, is Durham Cathedral. The world always seems different from Palace Green early in the morning. Having left behind the hustle and bustle of the city, I entered the calm serenity of the as yet undisturbed Green. I often made my way across the Green without hearing a single person, only the rhythmical tolling of the Cathedral bells alerting the city below that Morning Prayer was about to begin. Crossing the threshold of the great North Door, the sound of the bells was left behind and there was only the faint metallic jangle of the bell rope in the nave as the verger yanked hard on it. Walking down the nave, beyond the crossing and beneath the vast empty expanse of the lantern above, passing through the nineteenth-century marble archway known as the Scott Screen, I entered the quire.

Figure 4.1.  Durham Cathedral from Palace Green. © Arran J. Calvert.

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Figure 4.2.  The quire. © Arran J. Calvert.

The quire is the heart of the Cathedral’s religious activities. Flanked on both sides by ornate seventeenth-century choir stalls facing one another, each with three rows, straight ahead is the high alter in front of the Neville Screen, an ornate stone screen in the gothic style that separates the quire from the tomb of St Cuthbert beyond. It is in this space that the choir usually sings, conducting the daily Evensong service and most of the special services from the stalls, with the congregation sitting alongside. The atmosphere of the Cathedral so early in the day is one of calmness and preparation for the day ahead. As I took my seat for Morning Prayer, it was to the day ahead that my mind turned. During quieter moments, I would while away my time sitting in various areas, listening to and recording the sounds of the building. In the nave, for example, the sounds varied enormously, from the rumble of the heating system in the early morning to the low soothing voices of Morning Prayer. As the day advanced, the hushed tones of visitors would begin to fill the space, along with the sounds of the stewards, their voices confidently echoing in the space. At noon, the voice of a verger would be heard on the speaker system, alerting everybody to Holy Communion, welcoming those who wished to join and informing them of its location. As the day went on, common sounds included children on school trips, the choir rehearsing or the scrapping of pews as they were rearranged. Eventually, the space would quieten as the number of people began to diminish. As the end of the day approached,

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Evensong would bring the sound to a crescendo as the choir confidently moved through the day’s liturgy. Finally, once the congregation made their way back through the North Door and out into the evening air, and the doors were locked, Durham Cathedral would once again fall to the sound of the rumbling heating system. Sound is an integral part of our engagement with the world, though it is frequently considered secondary, after vision. Nevertheless, one’s first impression upon entering the Cathedral is of sound. During my hours welcoming visitors as a steward, I was often amused by visitors who entered the Cathedral almost immediately clapping their hands over their mouths upon realizing that they had been talking as if they were still outside. As soon as they did this, the acoustics of the building would catch the sound, amplifying it for everyone to hear. While Durham Cathedral might be described as visually dominating by many, it can also be said that it is acoustically dominating. The structures of days, weeks and months are framed by sound. Similarly, our sense of spaces around the building are informed by sound. While hushed whispering, liturgical readings and the choir could often be heard in the nave, the undercroft was typically a much noisier place, with people conversing as normal, particularly in the restaurant. In contrast, the Shrine of St Cuthbert commanded a respectful silence. In exploring sound in Durham Cathedral, I want to highlight two important aspects of its position in the Cathedral: the significant role it plays in the structure and routine of life in the building and its symbiotic relationship with the building. In short, I want to show that just as life goes on with the building, so too does sound.

Conversing with God The building’s relationship with sound began with the community of Benedictine monks who oversaw its construction. In following the Rule of St Benedict, their daily lives were structured around worship, with sound playing a key role not only in singing but also in reading and silence. The importance of music is emphasized in the introduction to a book examining the grammar of plainsong. The author, an anonymous Benedictine monk, argues that the ancients ‘considered music, not as a mere past time, but as the necessary basis of civilization and of all true education’ (Benedictines of Stanbrook Abbey 1934: 1), suggesting that the sacred chants prepare the soul for a celebration of the divine mysteries. The monks’ daily routine included seven divine Offices, during which the monks worked their way through the day’s prescribed psalms, sacred readings and prayers. As part of these services, psalms would be recited, with the Rule giving instructions on how and when they should be sung. In the eleventh century, the various parts of the services

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were sung in Gregorian chant, a monophonic vocal melody often referred to as plainsong to set it apart from the more harmonized styles of later musical settings. Just as the ringing bells alert everyone around to the beginning of service nowadays, the monks would have gone about their daily chores around the Cathedral until the bell called them to Office, when they would usually gather in the quire, which people still do twice daily. The seven Offices centred upon the recitation, through chant, of the psalms. Today, the Cathedral must make its way through all the 150 psalms each month. However, the requirement for the Benedictine monks was to recite all 150 psalms each week, meaning that their opus Dei (work of God) was considerably longer than that observed today. According to the Rule of St Benedict, the medieval Benedictine monk began his day at daybreak with the Office of Lauds (Morning Prayer) in the quire, with a number of psalms, hymns, prayers and readings, including a chapter from the Rule itself, known as a capitulum. All of the psalms were performed through Gregorian chant, as were the hymn, prayers and the Benedictus, leaving only the short reading to be spoken. The next four Offices of the day were named the ‘Little Hours’, beginning an hour after Lauds (zero hour), at approximately 7 am. These were Prime (the first hour) and Terce (the third hour), both of which would include three psalms or four s­ections of Psalm 119, as well as a capitulum, a hymn and a prayer. Next would be Sext (the sixth hour) and None (the ninth hour), which, in addition to a capitulum, a hymn, and a prayer, included three psalms each or three sections of Psalm 119. Depending upon the season, the time between these Offices would be spent either engaged in personal study or manual work. Two hours after None, the monks would again converge upon the quire of the Cathedral to observe Vespers (Evening Prayer). This included four psalms, a capitulum, the Magnificat (The Song of Mary), a hymn and prayers ending with the Lord’s Prayer. Following this, there would be a communal reading before the Office of Compline at dusk, during which three psalms, a capitulum, Nunc dimittis (The Song of Simeon), a hymn and prayers would be observed. Finally, the monks would observe the ‘Greater Silence’. Having refrained from speaking throughout the day, the Greater Silence would see them remain completely silent as they prepared for bed. The monks would then sleep for eight hours before silently rising in the darkness of their communal dormitory to return, in the darkness, to the quire and begin what was essentially their first Office of the day, the night Office of Matins. Matins was their longest Office, lasting so long that, especially in summertime, it would merge into Lauds, which celebrated daybreak. It included a total of fourteen psalms, followed by three readings from scripture or scriptural commentaries,

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a hymn and prayers that led into Lauds and the rising sun, seen through the east-facing Rose Window. The Offices, along with the cyclical chanting of the psalms, were, and still are, viewed as a conversation between God and his people – a conversation involving listening, responding and silent reflection – and although many Offices, such as Compline, are no longer part of daily life, they are still observed at particular points throughout the year. During Holy week, for example, Compline was observed every night after Evensong. In addition, many elements of the routine set out above are still recognizable in the daily life of the Cathedral, due in part to the Benedictine influence of the Dean Michael Sadgrove and Canon Rosalind Brown, as the conversation with God continues. The long tradition of this conversation was often mentioned as an unbroken continuum of the building, as Canon Brown remarked at the beginning of one Evensong: ‘This service is our chance to dip into an ancient conversation with God, a conversation which has been happening within this space since the monks first began it in the eleventh century.’ In highlighting this fact, Canon Brown also emphasized that the act of gathering together within the quire of the Cathedral was not a gathering together of individual prayers; it was instead viewed as the Church itself coming together as one in order to pray in unity for all. Similarly, the link between the space of the Cathedral and the continuing conversation with God was often tacitly discussed by many I spoke to. As I was waiting for the start of Evensong in a quire stall one day, a man I had seen around the Cathedral but never spoken to sat beside me and we began to talk about the walls of the Cathedral. Looking up at the stone vaulted ceiling, he observed: You know, if these walls could talk, what they would say. Every day men and women have come here and spoken with God, telling him their hopes, dreams and fears. It’s like the stones are oozing with this divine conversation, but it’s very real. Real people with real worries for a thousand years, it just boggles the mind.

The expression of sentiments such as this often included a personification of the building and an acknowledgement of its role in the conversation, most often as a facilitator, providing the space in which to engage with God. As an extension of the conversation that occurred throughout the daily Offices, the monks would also spend extensive periods of time studying texts such as biblical commentaries, many of which still exist in the Durham Cathedral archive. According to the Rites of Durham, a sixteenth-century document that records the daily rites and rituals of Durham Cathedral Priory, once the monks had dined, ‘they dyd resorte to that place of Cloister

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and there studyed upon there books, every one in his carrell, all the after nonne, unto evensong tyme’ (Rites and Monuments of the Cathedral Church of Durham 1998: 70). Whilst we might today expect quality study time to be conducted in silence, this would have been seen as an opportunity for the monks to continue their conversations with God. Like the Offices, study was a time of conversation that involved listening, responding and contemplation through the monks’ engagement with the written texts. In contrast to how we now prioritize reading ‘within our heads’, the medieval monk would have read aloud (Treitler 1984: 139), articulating the Word of God. As Michel de Certeau points out, until the sixteenth or seventeenth century, it was believed that the Holy Scriptures literally ‘spoke’. As such, the sacred texts the monks read had a voice that ‘teaches (the original sense of documentum), it is the advent of a “meaning” (un “vouloir-dire”) on the part of a God who expects the reader (in reality, the listener) to have a “desire to hear and understand” (un “vouloir-entendre”) on which access to truth depends’ (de Certeau 2011: 137). In this sense, the medieval monks would have thought about the written word in an entirely different way to how we think of it as we constantly search behind the words for their meaning. Whereas we see the written words and consider their meanings, the monks would have ‘listened’ to the words they saw on the page, using their eyes to hear and perceiving the written words just as they would perceive spoken words (Ingold 2007: 13). This concept of the written word ‘speaking’ goes back further than the medieval monks. In tracing the etymological origins of the word ‘read’, Nicholas Howe finds that its origins were in the Gothic, Old High German, Old Saxon, Old Norse and Old Frisian languages and that it shared the ‘principal meanings of “to give advice or counsel”, “to exercise control over something”, and “to explain something obscure”, such as a riddle (OED, s.v. read)’ (1993: 61). In cultures that had no established form of writing, ‘reading’ could only have been a spoken act. Therefore, in introducing writing into cultures unaccustomed to written texts, ‘The act of reading would have seemed remarkably like solving a riddle’ (ibid.: 62). In short, the act of reading aloud was necessary for the understanding of the texts, and this understanding lay in deciphering the mysterious sounds on the page. As Howe eloquently puts it, ‘The squiggles must be made to speak’ (ibid.: 63). For the Benedictine monks of Durham Cathedral Priory, their relationship with the written word is likely to have been of greater importance than the relationship we have with it today. The monk sitting alone in his carrel between Offices was not reading in silence, but rather continuing his conversation with God as he listened to His Word. Indeed, the documents used by the monks that are still held in the Durham Cathedral archive are

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littered with notes in the margins to aid those reading the text aloud. A good example of this is the Durham Cantor’s Book (DCL B.IV.24), a book that would have been in daily use in Durham Cathedral Priory from the eleventh century.

The Mood of the Cathedral Although the conversation that the Benedictine monks maintained with God is much less pronounced today, the connection to the past through sound is still a significant part of life in Durham Cathedral. During my fieldwork, the choir still performed the Office of Evensong in Gregorian chant once a week, although, generally speaking, the psalms and prayers were sung in a more ornate Tudor-style ‘setting’. The term ‘setting’ is used to describe music written for a literary work. In the case of Church music, the literature is usually the psalms. Therefore, whilst the musical style (the setting) may change, the words always remain the same. As Master of the Choir, Canon James Lancelot, explained, the psalms are an important part of daily worship: These are hymns that Jesus sang and take us right back to Hebrew worship in the temple. We think that some take us back to the temple of Jerusalem. Yes, even as old as that, and yes, for some people, they are the highlight of the service . . . and music takes the words to a new level, it enhances them, illustrates them, but also adds to them, and in that it speaks to believer and non-believer alike. I think it [music] is a way in for people, even if they can’t assent necessarily, to the full meaning of the text.

However, the importance of music in worship goes beyond its connection to the past. It was during Lent that the influence music has on the mood of the entire building was revealed to me. Beginning on Ash Wednesday, Lent is a period of solemn reflection, contemplation, prayer and self-denial that lasts until Easter Sunday. However, in this particular year, it also spanned a number of feast and celebratory days, including the Feast of St Cuthbert, the most important saint of Durham Cathedral, and the Annunciation, nine months before Christmas Day. Both feasts are important for the congregation of Durham Cathedral and the Anglican Church, and both are causes for celebration. Yet their occurrence during the Lenten period created a difficulty in terms of the qualitative experiences associated with the contrasting elements in the religious calendar. I arrived early for the special service for the Feast of the Annunciation and took my seat in the rapidly filling quire. Carefully folding my coat and placing it under my seat, I sat back and stared up at the ceiling, waiting for

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the service to begin. ‘Good evening, everyone,’ the minister said as his eyes surveyed the now packed quire stalls in the heart of the Cathedral. Welcome to the Feast of the Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus Christ. We have gathered here this evening to celebrate this joyous occasion, and, although we are in this Lenten period, we must not feel guilty about the sounds and words which we will hear this evening, for this is an occasion for celebration.

I had not expected the congregation to be told that they need not feel guilty for the words and sounds we were about to hear. As the minister’s words faded away, I realized that the music and settings were being used to affect the mood of the Cathedral and community. Indeed, as the choir rose from the stalls and began to sing, I began to fully understand what the minister had said during his introduction. As the ‘Alleluias’ soared through the air and the joyful tones of the evening’s music danced their way up the nave, I realized that although I was now accustomed to hearing these sounds, particularly during the special services, I had not heard them during the period of Lent. I was suddenly aware of the change in mood associated with the transition into the Lenten period, dictated by the settings used by the choir, which, whilst still singing the same 150 psalms, had done so with more morose, reserved settings. As one member of the congregation explained to me, ‘If you listen carefully, you can hear the change from one period to another, just like the changing of the seasons.’ As we moved into Lent, the change was subtle. The service on Ash Wednesday, ‘The Imposition of Ashes’, was solemn and serious, perhaps understandably considering it was ushering in the period of Lent. Although the daily Offices of Morning Prayer and Evensong had changed, with more solemn tones being used and words such as ‘Alleluia’ dropping out of use, the change was subtle, almost unnoticeable from one day to the next. However, when juxtaposed with the celebratory sounds of the Annunciation, it became apparent that sound played a major role not only in aiding the conversation with God but also in shaping the mood of the Cathedral and community during the various periods of the religious calendar. Alluding to these subtle changes in sound, Canon Lancelot explained some of the musical choices for the various services: As to the music choices we make, the choir’s job is to sing the daily Evensong and Sunday Matins and communion, so, to quite a big extent, things are prescriptive. We have to sing the particular psalms that are set for that day of the month, so on February 5th, we sing the psalms for the fifth evening. For example, we have to sing Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and we may sing them in ancient settings, or fairly old settings, or modern settings, or very modern settings, even brand-new settings, but, you know, the texts are set so

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we have to have a set of those ready for each day that we sing. As regards the anthem we sing in Evensong, there’s a much wider choice, but you try to keep it – if there is a particular season such as the Epiphany or Lent – then that focuses the choice, and it may even be that the readings from the Bible on the day also suggest a particular angle, although they don’t have to. Likewise, for the Sunday morning communion, you know, we have to sing a setting for the mass, and we have to sing an anthem that is sacramental in character.

Canon Lancelot’s comments reveal that the choices made related to particular seasons, readings or psalms and often tapped into the implicit moods, such as the sacramental character of Sunday services. Additionally, the changing feel of the settings highlight the nuanced and delicate role music plays in the daily life of the Cathedral. As Canon Lancelot stated, the words that are sung are largely prescriptive and all 150 psalms, the words of which never change, are recited once a month. Given that the psalms’ words do not change, it is the settings in which they are sung that shape the mood of the building and community, subtly lifting and lowering the mood of the services, which, through the choir and organ rehearsals throughout the week, also seeps into daily communal life and the stones of the building, which seem to retain the atmospheric mood set by the liturgy and guided by the choir. In this way, the sonic world of music plays an important role in the daily life of the Cathedral. This highlights the intimate connection between the choir of Durham Cathedral and the building itself. As Viktor Zuckerkandl asserts, ‘the forces that act in the tonal world manifest themselves through bodies but not upon bodies’ (1973: 365). As such, sound’s meaning is not what it points to ‘but in the pointing itself ’ (ibid.: 68). Unlike light, which draws us to the object, sound’s meaning is in the doing. Considering sound in this way demonstrates the importance of the act of singing and the act of conversing. In short, it is the process that is significant, for it is during the process that connections develop between singers, listeners and the environment. In focusing upon the process of sound, Don Ihde argues that while it may be posited that vision ‘objectifies’, there is also ‘a tradition which holds that sound “personifies”’ (2007: 21). This tradition emerges from classical scholars’ claims that the word ‘person’ stems from the Latin word personare, meaning ‘to sound through’ (Ingold, 2000: 246). This etymology is compelling because of its concordance with a widely held view that behind the visible facade of a person, such as his or her face, there is an inner being that only reveals itself through sound, by way of the voice (ibid.). Through the act of singing or conversing, the voice emerges from within and penetrates listeners from the outside in (ibid.).

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Considering this in light of the idea of a continuing conversation with God and the anonymous Benedictine monk of Stanbrook Abbey’s assertion that the sacred chants prepare the soul for a celebration of the divine mysteries (1934: 1), the spiritual experience becomes one of deep connection to the sounds and, by extension, the creators of the sounds, whether they be human, building or otherwise. This is an important element of sound for Zuckerkandl, who writes about what he calls the ‘from-out-there-towardme-and-through-me’ (1973: 364). When coming into contact with objects, a distance is maintained such that we only ever experience a surface, which reinforces a separating barrier (ibid.: 368). Yet, sound has the ability to penetrate an individual, flowing over and through the barrier, creating a consciousness not of distance – as with an object – but of communication and participation (ibid.), elements that are key to any conversation. As Paul Stoller argues, ‘Zuckerkandl’s thesis on the “inner” dimension of sound merely reaffirms what informants have been telling anthropologists since the beginning of ethnographic field study; that sound is a dimension of experience in and of itself ’ (1984: 567).

Can You Hear the Architecture? Looking more closely at the process of sound, I want to focus on the important connections that develop between singers and their environment, in particular, the choir and Durham Cathedral. During my fourteen months of fieldwork, I was struck by two things about sound. Firstly, whereas light is directional, in that it travels in straight lines, sound is omnidirectional, emanating out in all directions. Secondly, sound is a physical thing; although it is heard through our ears, it is also sensed, felt with our entire bodies, so we are immersed in the sonic world. Anybody who has stood in front of bass speakers at a rock concert will attest to the sensation of being physically hit by the bass. Sound is an important aspect of our relationship with our environment. In keeping with Zuckerkandl (1973), Juhani Pallasmaa (2012: 53) writes that whereas we might look towards an object, sound approaches us. The aural relationship between buildings and the body is one we all experience but seldom notice. Yet, it is through our hearing that we come to structure and articulate our experience of the spaces we are in (ibid.), and every space is different. Listening to sound in Durham Cathedral does more than excite our interest in the sounds heard. The pressure wave’s arrival at the ear brings not only the ‘sonic event’ but also attributes of the ‘acoustic space’ connecting the listener to the external world (Blesser and Salter 2007: 12). Whilst our sight presses against the hard surfaces of the building, we experience a relationship

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and connection to the space through sound. We become connected to the walls of the Cathedral and the source of the sound, realizing the Cathedral’s shape as we perceive the sounds that emerge from a symbiotic relationship between the singing of the choir and the unique characteristics of Durham Cathedral. In Steen Eiler Rasmussen’s book Experiencing Architecture, he asks, ‘can architecture be heard?’ (1964: 224). For Rasmussen, the answer is obvious: ‘Yes.’ Just as one sees architecture through the reflection of light, so too does one experience architecture through the reflection of sound. However, acoustically, the architecture of cathedrals can be challenging. The long reverberation time created in the vast stone caves make singing well without prior knowledge of the building an almost impossible task. In Durham Cathedral, the choir and any visiting choirs often make a point of rehearsing in the quire before services in order to acquaint themselves with the unique characteristics of the building’s architecture. Thus, they familiarize themselves with the space of the building, the distinctive traits of the quire stalls, the ribbed stone vaulting above, the width and length of the quire and the way in which the quire opens into the crossing and out towards the nave, with its mix of rounded and pointed arches – an experimental architecture offering its own unique voice to the sound of the choir. While an elaborate system of speakers and microphones is used today by those speaking during services in the Cathedral, circumventing the need to think about the acoustics when not singing, such technology was not an option for the Benedictine monks in their daily Offices within the quire. Although, at that time, the quire would have been closed off from the nave by two walls on either side of the cathedral crossing; today, the nineteenthcentury marble Scott Screen stands at the entrance of the quire, installed as part of an aesthetic ‘face lift’ that gave Durham Cathedral one of its most famous views, straight through to the Rose Window. The removal of the partition resulted in the sound created within the quire being able to spill out into the nave and reverberate freely around the space. Before its removal, the voices of the monks within the quire – then enclosed on three sides by wooden quire stalls and the high altar on the fourth wall – would have been a more manageable sound, on which the overly reverberative nave would have had little effect. However, as a cathedral priory, in addition to housing a community of monks, the Cathedral also had to accommodate the public during services such as the main Sunday service. At these times, the separating walls would have resulted in the congregation in the nave hearing the sound only once it had reverberated around the ribbed stone vaulting and the lantern above the crossing, making the understanding of God’s word potentially problematic. If, as suggested in the Rites and Monuments of the Cathedral Church of Durham, a priest were to stand on the dividing wall with the intention of

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Figure 4.3.  View from the quire stalls looking out into the nave. © Arran J. Calvert.

reading the liturgy from a position that allowed both the monks and congregation to see, his words would become a soup of indistinguishable syllables, even if his voice was strong enough to reach the back of the nave (Bagenal and Wood 1931: 226). The result would be that those at the back of the nave would not understand what they were listening to. In order for the voice to be clearly heard at the back of the nave, a more rhythmic style of speech was required. As mentioned earlier, the style that emerged was the simple, monophonic, unaccompanied vocal melody of Gregorian chant, the predominant form of Western plainsong. Its emergence was an essential musical development in both church and cathedral worship. As such, the music conceived for these stone structures gradually developed along with the spaces themselves. In medieval Christianity, not only was the institution of the Church building specific spaces; it was also ‘an enthusiastic sponsor of dedicated music’ (Blesser and Salter 2009: 92). It has been suggested by Hope W.A. Bagenal and Alexander Wood (1934), David Lubman and Brenda Kiser (2001), and Paul Devereux (2001) that the development of chant is a direct and inevitable consequence of the high levels of reverberation in churches and cathedrals, which was a result of the shift away from wooden structures towards the ever-expanding, high-reaching stone buildings that began to emerge across Europe. Viewed in this way, the development of building materials, architectural styles, and chanting as the means of vocalizing the

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Latin texts can be seen as developing symbiotically. Indeed, before plainsong, there existed more complex styles of liturgical vocalization, which did not fit  well with the new stone cathedrals (Burkholder, Grout and Palisca 2014). Thus, the slow rhythmical modulations of plainsong not only avoided exciting the lively acoustics such that the voice might become indistinguishable but also allowed the sound to develop with the architecture of the building. In allowing and actively encouraging the sound to engage with the particular traits of the building, as plainsong does, an understanding of the building’s acoustics and what can be achieved in working with the building began to emerge. Indeed, plainsong is remarkably well suited to the architecture of cathedrals. As Canon Lancelot suggested, plainsong works ‘more than the spoken word; it carries sublimely beautifully’. Sitting in Durham Cathedral while the choir was singing, particularly during services when they sang from the quire and I was sitting at the rear of the nave, it struck me that ‘carry’ is the appropriate word. The way in which plainsong is carried through the building not just by the strength of the singers’ voices but also by the acoustic traits of the building is clear. Over time, this symbiotic relationship between the developing architecture and the musical styles became more focused and evident, as Canon Lancelot went on to explain: Quite a lot of what we sing is Tudor church music, but that was really written for cathedrals with pointed arches. The people who built the Cathedral knew about acoustics, I don’t know how they knew about it, but they seemed to have a natural feel for it. Then the composers of Tudor church music knew the buildings they were writing for, so there’s a marriage of architecture and music.

Although we cannot know how much the stonemasons who built these cathedrals knew about the relationship between architecture and acoustics, Canon Lancelot’s comments do allude to the close relationship between the architecture and music, as well as the symbiotic development of church music and its environment. This is clearly in evidence in the Cathedral archives, in music such as the Kyrie Cuthberte, a short polyphonic piece written for three voices in 1400 but thought to be a duplicate of a much earlier copy. The Kyrie was written for the Feast of St Cuthbert, Durham Cathedral’s most famous saint. In an interview with a local newspaper, Marie-Thérèse Mayne, the exhibition officer of Durham Cathedral, called it the ‘earliest known surviving composition specific to Durham Cathedral’ (Engelbrecht 2017). Surviving pieces of musical notation such as this highlight the long tradition of writing music with the building in mind. Furthermore, the Kyrie Cuthberte contains notated accidentals. Accidentals are notes that, although not in the prescribed key of the piece,

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give the singer another option should he or she want or need to adjust the individual note. The inclusion of accidentals in music written specifically for Durham Cathedral highlights a deep understanding of how sound interacts with the building during a performance. Accidentals can be understood as ad hoc notes that singers can use to deal with particular characteristics of the building. Furthermore, such notes reveal the dynamic relationship that the singers negotiate with the building and each other.

Singing with the Building While the relationship between music and the building may have become well established over the centuries, as a member of the congregation, it is easy to overlook the role of the building in the relationship. Indeed, it was not until I experienced Christmas Eve and the Midnight Eucharist halfway through my fieldwork that I began to appreciate this relationship and the vital role played by the building in creating the sounds heard during the choir’s singing. I arrived forty minutes early to find the Cathedral already full of people sitting in rows and dressed in layers of thick jumpers, scarves and coats. There was a lively babble within the nave and individual voices were indiscernible from one another. People shuffled along, their heels clacking noisily on the stone floor. Pews creaked as people took their seats. The Cathedral was warm, brightly lit and cheerful-looking. Taking a service booklet from a steward, I too slid into a pew and awaited the start of the service. The service was conducted in the nave, with the choir standing in the crossing beneath the lantern. According to Canon Lancelot, services in this location needed most management. The vast empty expanse of the lantern above the choir ‘can be a problem because the sound gets stuck up there and so does not propagate through the building in quite the same way’. With this in mind, I focused my attention on the performance of the choir, eager to see how they would deal with singing below the lantern. Once the service had begun and the Dean had welcomed the congregation using a microphone, the choir stood and began to sing, unaided by the modern technology of microphones and speakers. Guided by the choirmaster and their own knowledge of the building, the singers’ voices undulated rhythmically through the syllables. At points, the choirmaster seemed to be reining in the choir, as if waiting for the building to engage with their words before continuing to move through the music. The sound they created was full of warm undertones that swelled as they reverberated through the space. As the choir sang, their voices drew the building closer and I was reminded of Pallasmaa’s suggestion that we come to structure and articulate our

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experience of the spaces we are in through sound (2012: 53). The fusion of their voices and the building drew attention not to the small group of singers assembled in the crossing but rather to the space all around. Through the sound, I became aware of the space behind and above me, to the grandeur of the nave. The sound was not being made by the choir alone; the deep, warm tones sound as the space feels, warm and embracing. As the sound continued, the walls and ceiling, so far from reach and sight, became audibly perceptible, enveloping the congregation and creating an affinity between choir, congregation and cathedral. Through its interaction with the space, the sound originating from the choir  develops an emotional charge as the congregation comes into direct  interaction with the building (Pallasmaa 2012: 55). As Pallasmaa asserts, ‘[w]e stroke the boundaries of the space with our ears’ (ibid.). In experiencing this sound, however, it is difficult to discuss how specific elements of the architecture add particular traits to the sound, although they undoubtedly do. It is not an experience of ribbed stone vaulting or pointed transverse arches; rather, it is an experience of Durham Cathedral as a whole. Considering the impact of the relationship between the choir and the building on the sounds created, it is important to further explore the interface between Durham Cathedral and the singers of the choir. Michael D. Kirchoff’s (2009) material agency thesis acts as a useful lens through which to view this relationship. Both ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ views take the organism-in-its-environment as their departure point. The strong view, most often found in actor-network theory (Latour 1993, 1999), is based on what Kirchoff describes as an ‘argument by parity’ (2009: 206). According to this view, if Durham Cathedral and the singers are so co-ordinated that they together constitute the sound created, ‘[t]hen there is no principled difference’ (ibid.) between Durham Cathedral and the singer in the creation of the sound. Thus, the strong view contends that ‘if it is equally credible to assign the same functional role’ to Durham Cathedral, as we ‘normally or intuitively do’ with the singers, then Durham Cathedral is ‘part and parcel’ of the process constituting the sound (ibid.). The weak view, evident in the work of Don Ihde (1991), James J. Gibson (1979), Martin Heidegger (2001) and Tim Ingold (2000), builds on what Kirchoff calls the ‘coupling as constitution argument’ (2009: 206). According to this approach, if Durham Cathedral and the singers are so co-ordinated that they together constitute the sound, then Durham Cathedral and the singers make up a ‘causally coupled system’ (ibid.). Therefore, neglecting to take Durham Cathedral into account when explaining the sound is akin to not recognizing Durham Cathedral as ‘importantly transforming the nature and/or generation’ of the sound whenever it is coupled with the singers (ibid.).

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Whereas the strong view revolves around a position of ‘no principled difference’ (ibid.) between Durham Cathedral and the singers, it is the weak view that best illuminates the interface between building and singer. The weak view acknowledges the unique experience of human embodiment in which the environment takes on its meaning in relation to us all individually,  allowing each individual to make a ‘special and ineliminable contribution to the agentive dimension of material-cultural entities’ (ibid.). As Canon Lancelot’s comments highlight, the relationship between the music and the building developed as a result of an understanding of the architecture and what can be achieved when working with it. However, it was not until I returned to the Cathedral some months after the end of my fieldwork that I began to fully appreciate the ‘specific details of human embodiment’ (ibid.).

Singing with Deryck One cannot create the beautiful sounds one might expect to hear within the walls of Durham Cathedral merely by chanting. Rather, these sounds are achieved through an understanding of the building and the development of a relationship with the building. In order to be heard, one must learn how the building engages with the voice as it slowly rises and falls, with syllables emerging and dying away, followed by yet more vocal modulations (Rasmussen 1964: 228). One must listen to and understand the building and then adjust oneself to it, manipulating the body, voice and building for the benefit of the sound. In doing this, one is effectively using the building as a powerful instrument, an instrument that needs to be learnt so that one can play the room to great effect (ibid.: 230). Such an awareness of the building’s acoustic properties results in the choir and building coming together to enhance the experience of the building and the sound produced as part of the Cathedral’s ministerial mission of giving praise to and conversing with God. When I returned to the Cathedral some months after the end of my fieldwork to give a seminar on sound and the architecture to anthropology students from Durham University, I asked Deryck, a member of the men’s choir, to give a demonstration of the difference between the spoken voice and singing within the quire. Standing in his personal stall, we listened as he read aloud a psalm and then chanted the same psalm. His relationship with the building became instantly clear. When he spoke the psalm, the individual words became indistinguishable from one another. I had the impression that he was trying to ignore the voluminous swell of sound his speaking was creating. By contrast, his chanting was crisp and clearly comprehensible as he seemed to work in unison with the building.

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Similarly, as I had observed with Canon Lancelot, Deryck often seemed to instinctively pause for a fraction of a second, as if waiting for the building, taking his lead from the sounds returning to him. Sitting in the opposite quire stalls, those attending the seminar smiled and nodded in agreement about the clarity of Deryck’s chanting, with one person commenting, ‘It’s totally different. I could not understand a word he spoke, but when he sang, it was really clear, but it was like the sound was only partly coming from him and the rest coming from the building.’ Indeed, after the seminar, Deryck spoke about the process of singing within the Cathedral: You know, it’s a funny thing. As a singer, I’m obviously consciously tied up with the egotistical parts of my performance, you know: how did I do, how did I sound. But actually, as I was giving my demonstration and through listening to you speak about sound and the architecture, I suddenly became aware that actually, you’re right. There are all manner of things that I am aware of. As I’m singing, I have an eye on Canon Lancelot as he guides us [the choir] through the music. I’m listening to my colleagues beside me, constantly adjusting the level of my voice to fit with them, but I am also adjusting myself to the building too. I’m positioning my body in such a way as to project my voice out into the building at the correct angle. I’m listening to the building and my voice returning back to me, listening to its sound, and adjusting myself further to fit with what I’m hearing come back to me from the walls as it’s mixed with the other voices. It really is an odd thing because I was never really aware of the fact that I was doing it, but now that you are talking about it and as I was singing, I was suddenly aware of myself doing all of these things. It’s like I am suddenly more aware of my position within the Cathedral.

As Deryck’s comments highlight, while his relationship with the building may not be apprehended on a fully conscious level, it is nonetheless an existent, embodied knowledge. Just as Pallasmaa argues that our experience of architecture is bodily, incorporating all senses at once, so too is Deryck’s performance with the Cathedral. As he sings, he maintains an awareness of his body’s position in relation to the building and those around him, adjusting himself and his performance in response. The weak view of the material agency thesis, which allows for the particularities of human embodiment, emphasizes the relationship between singer and building and the constant interaction that drives them to ‘redefine each other constantly’ (Pallasmaa 2012: 43). As Deryck’s conscious realization of the relationship suggests, the experience of singing with the Cathedral is one of unity in which ‘the percept of the body and the image of the world turn into one single continuous existential experience’ (ibid.). As a consequence of this relationship and understanding between singer and building, the choir is able to create a sound of worship that lives in and

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with the Cathedral, ‘and in a soul-stirring manner turn[s] the great edifice into a musical experience’ (Rasmussen 1964: 228–30). Rasmussen illustrates how essential it is to work with the building and its aural characteristics rather than against them. He suggests that if one were to play a studio recording of a passage of Gregorian chant with very little reverb, the music would be ‘dull, flat and thoroughly uninspirational’ (ibid.: 230). Yet, when the recording is played in the environment it was intended for, the sounds open up to the listener, vibrant and full of life, the rich tones of the music reverberating through the air. Indeed, when the Benedictine monks of Santo Domingo de Silos in Spain recorded an album of Gregorian chant in the 1970s, which was later released in 1994, they chose to conduct the recordings within the same monastic space in which they sang their daily Offices and in which chant had been sung since at least the tenth century. In the resulting audio, the powerful acoustics of the building were expertly understood, engaged with, fully involved and easily audible. It is this relationship between the building and the collective voice of the choir that is experienced in Durham Cathedral. Returning to material agency, Lambros Malafouris points out that in ethnographies concerning skilled practices, when faced with questions of how they do it, the skilled practitioners often struggle to articulate an answer, preferring instead to show you. ‘They can do it but they do not know how they do it’, Malafouris writes, arguing that verbal description cannot ‘capture the phenomenological perturbations of real activity and the reciprocity’ (2008: 19). Just as Deryck’s comments highlight, this relationship is often so subtle and nuanced that it becomes veiled behind other elements involved in the process of singing. As such, it was only when the topic was directly addressed that the depths of the relationship began to be revealed to Deryck, who came to realize the necessity of his embodied relationship with the building for achieving the desired tones. These tones do not simply present themselves from out of nowhere. Rather, they emerge from the tacit embodied relationship that exists between singer and cathedral as they work together.

The Unity of Sound Sound is an integral part of our engagement with the world, connecting us to our environment in ways that are often difficult to articulate. Whether it is through conversing with God, through the varying musical settings or through singing with the building, sound has long been a fundamental part of life in Durham Cathedral. The development of Gregorian chant allowed monks to work with the architecture that was emerging across Europe from the ninth century onwards. This was particularly important as technology advanced and the main building material became stone, resulting in the

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replacement of older wooden structures that had been both smaller and acoustically kinder than their stone counterparts. The acoustic properties of these stone buildings create a particular kind of sound that requires a shift in the relationship between singer and building as an embodied understanding of the space emerges. As such relationships evolve, composers symbiotically prosper, with space-specific compositions emerging through an understanding of these spaces, as evidenced by the Kyrie Cuthberte, which was written specifically for Durham Cathedral. Through conversations such as those with Deryck and Canon Lancelot, it became clear that the act of singing necessitates singing with the building, understanding and working with the space and its architectural features to create Durham Cathedral’s unique voice. This was further echoed in an interview with Canon Lancelot, who explained that there is ‘a marriage of architecture and music’. In recognition of this continuing and ever-­ developing relationship, Canon Lancelot explained an important aspect of Durham Cathedral’s recent history and the impact it has had on the sound of the Cathedral: The Cathedral is very receptive. One of the things it has, as a building, taken to itself, into its stonework very happily and quite unusually, is brass-band playing. The Cathedral is emblematic, it’s an icon in the community, and this community for so long was about coal mining. In a sort of solidarity of relaxing together, they came up with this wonderful tradition of brass-band playing and it is only right that they did, and still do, come along and offer that into the Cathedral. It was a part of their life and vision, and so every year, particularly at the Miners’ Gala and at other times, you get these brass bands coming and playing at the Cathedral, and they sound wonderful in there, and I just feel, in just the same way as the monks’ plainsong has soaked into the stone, so too has brass-band music soaked into the building.

The role of brass bands in Durham Cathedral is significant not only because the building itself has taken to the sound but also because brass bands are an important part of the identity of many former mining villages in County Durham. Thus, the role of brass bands in the musical activities of the Cathedral is seen by many as an important link between the identity of County Durham and Durham Cathedral. Furthermore, it highlights the continuing relationship between the building and those who perform music within it, from plainsong and Tudor church music to brass bands and beyond. Above all, it is clear that both the Benedictine monks and those who perform in the Cathedral today understand that the Cathedral itself plays an essential role in creating the sound. However, it is not only through standing in a particular space that one is able to achieve the full potential of both the building and one’s own voice, but also through learning the building just

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as one would learn an instrument. As a result, the unique voice of Durham Cathedral, its rich tones and ringing reverberation, add great strength and depth to the voices of the choir, with this strength and depth emerging from a symbiotic relationship in which an embodied awareness must be maintained in order to unlock the full potential of both singer and Cathedral. In drawing attention to the interface of this symbiotic relationship, I wish to highlight that singing in Durham Cathedral is singing with Durham Cathedral. The material agency of the building is an important and experiential factor not only for those listening to the choir but also for members of the choir as they sing with the building. This agency, however, is not a human property but the emergent product of the ‘irreducible tension of mediated activity’ (Malafouris 2008: 33). This tension, itself dynamic and affected by a multitude of factors, ‘characterizes the processes of material engagement’ (ibid.: 34). This material engagement is compelling, drawing our awareness of agency away from objects and things, towards practice and the ‘flow of activity itself ’ (Salter 2018: 128). The rich tones and ringing reverberation that add great strength and depth to the voice of the singer are not simply added to the sound; rather, they are an emergent part of this flow of activity within Durham Cathedral. Finally, to return to and expand on Rasmussen’s answer to his question of whether architecture can be heard, ‘to hear architecture is to pay attention to matter usually ignored’ (Salter 2018: 142), but to sing with architecture is to enter into an understanding and an embodied relationship, at the interface of which there is a powerful engagement and an irreducible tension, from which the agency of the building emerges. It is at this emergent interface that Durham Cathedral and the singers co-ordinate to create the sounds so often heard within the building. This brings into sharp focus the skilled, embodied, interdependent and symbiotic relationship that exists between singers such as Deryck and the building, giving rise to the unique voice of Durham Cathedral. As such, the view that the stones of the building are oozing with divine conversation may not be as far from the truth as we might think.

Chapter 5

The Light of Durham Cathedral

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The Light of the Cathedral Light, natural and artificial, is a big part of the experience of Durham Cathedral. The beaming sunlight of an early summer’s morning enters through the stained-glass windows and colourfully illuminates the bare sandstone walls. On windy, rain-sodden and thoroughly miserable January mornings, you rush through the doors and are immediately embraced by the artificial lighting, which illuminates the architectural features of the building and warms you mentally, if not physically. The light of Durham Cathedral always lifted my spirits. My most enjoyable experiences of fieldwork were the early evenings of late summer, when I would sit at the back of the nave as the crowds began to thin out and bask in the coloured light coming through the stained-glass windows. I would take a break from writing field notes to lift my face to the sunlight, periodically moving along the pew as the light moved through the ancient architecture. It was partly because of such experiences that I spent two summers at the Cathedral; the summer light created an atmosphere that I wanted to experience again. Light has the ability to alter our experience of space. As highlighted by the recent interest in ‘hygge’, a Scandinavian concept that relates to the creation of a cosy and warm environment, light plays a key role in creating a desired mood in a space. To achieve hygge, the lighting is manipulated to create an intimate space, with dim, warm lighting drawing people together. Similarly, high-end restaurants work hard to achieve an intimate space through the

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use of lighting; the light must be dim enough to create a sense of intimacy, but bright enough that patrons can see what they are eating. It is a delicate balance; whether it be a warm and intimate dining experience or a bright and sterile dental surgery, the ways in which light can shape space are complex and multiple (Edensor 2012: 1106) and attention to light highlights a potent part of our engagement with the world, an experience that is shaped by contrasting shades of light and darkness. As the Japanese writer Jun’ichirō Tanizaki asserts in his work In Praise of Shadows, ‘We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the patterns of the shadows, the light and darkness, that one thing against another creates’ (2001: 46). Indeed, a new exterior lighting system installed just before my fieldwork began serves as an illustration of how beauty can be revealed through lighting. During a conversation about the lighting system, it was remarked to me that it seemed the new lights were not illuminating the Cathedral so much as creating a tactile, shadowy surface. ‘The lumps and bumps of the stone’s texture draw you in and you sort of think about the stories of the building as if they’re scars or something and you wonder about how they came to be.’ Such occasions of people stopping to consider the materials the building is made of highlight the ways in which light can hint at a deeper experience of the building and our engagement with it. Tanizaki’s suggestion that we find beauty in the shadowy textures that light creates on the materials of our local environment draws our attention beyond the thing itself to a feeling, a sense of the world. In writing about the contrast between the ‘old, dimly lit’ toilets of a Nara or Kyoto temple and the brightly lit Western toilets, Tanizaki perfectly highlights the dimensions of materiality that can be revealed through shadows: The Japanese toilet truly is a place of spiritual repose . . . No words can describe that sensation as one sits in the dim light, basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji, lost in meditation or gazing out at the garden. The novelist Netsuke Soseki counted his morning trips to the toilet a great pleasure, ‘a physiological delight’ he called it. (2001: 9)

In contrast, Tanizaki describes how light can ruin the same experience, writing that the bright light of ‘Western’ toilets, with their ‘pure white’ walls and fixings, ‘hardly puts one in a mood to relish Soseki’s “physiological delight”’, and suggesting that it is ‘crude and tasteless to expose the toilet to such excessive illumination’ (2001: 11). The relationship between light and dark and the manner in which they create a multitude of shades, shapes and colours impact our sense and understanding of space, informing how we move through and experience spaces. There is a fragility to light and dark, with each being vulnerable to an abundance of the other (Morris 2011, Sumartojo 2015), leading Ben

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Figure 5.1.  The exterior lights of Durham Cathedral. © Arran J. Calvert.

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Figure 5.2.  Durham Cathedral illuminated from below, highlighting its tactile, shadowy surface. © Arran J. Calvert.

Gallan and Christopher R. Gibson (2011) to highlight the impracticalities of thinking about the two as being in opposition to one another; rather, they are constitutive components of the experience of space. This fragility of light and dark and the way in which this can impact our sense of and engagement with spaces were apparent throughout my time in Durham Cathedral. It was often said that particular services were lit in different ways, resulting in a different experience of the Cathedral. One example was the ‘Lighting of the Christmas Tree’ service, when the dark Cathedral was lit only by the candles of the choir, which cast long shadows over the dark architecture high above our heads. ‘You should make sure you see them lighting the Christmas tree, you don’t often get to see the Cathedral when it’s dark, you feel like you’re all huddled together’, one steward explained as we discussed my fieldwork. Indeed, the warmth of the candlelight combined with the cheerful singing of the choir and congregation created a sense of intimacy, closeness and, above all, spectacle.

Experiencing the Light There were two particular moments in the Cathedral that drew my attention to both the sense of spectacle and to the way in which lighting shapes our

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sense and experience of space and how we engage with that space. The first was a regular event called ‘Free to Be’. It was a dark, brisk night when I stepped out onto the Market Place and embarked upon my familiar journey up to the Cathedral, wrapped up against the winter chill. The streets, bathed in an eerie orange glow, were almost completely empty, as usual on a Sunday evening. My journey was a quiet one, through the pools of orange light from the streetlamps and up on to Palace Green, where the castle and Cathedral stood, regally illuminated. The lights, positioned on the ground, caught the lumps and bumps of the Cathedral’s exterior walls, extending them into long tactile shadows on the surface of the building. ‘Free To Be’ allowed people to explore Durham Cathedral by candlelight and in quiet meditation. As I entered, I found the Cathedral dimly lit, with many of the building’s strong lights having been switched off. The leaflet I was handed as I stepped into the nave read, ‘Free to Be aims to frame this sacred space in such a way that you might encounter God. You are free to explore the entire building. Walking, pausing, watching, and listening for God.’ With the lights dimmed, a number of tea lights had been lit, many of them around the columns of the nave, their light dancing across the ancient stone. Upon being asked if I would like to take off my shoes, I slipped them off and began to wander down the central aisle, feeling the warmth of the building’s underfloor heating. Reaching the north transept, I came across three barefooted women who were leaning against the wall of the Gregory Chapel, watching a video projected onto the stone wall opposite them. Others were sitting in silence in various areas, some on pews, some on the floor and one at the base of a column. Everyone was quiet, their eyes on the ancient architecture, which was glowing a dim orange. I wondered if they were listening for God. As I continued on my way around the building, down the side of the quire, through the Chapel of the Nine Alters and back up along the centre of the quire, I noticed the changing nature of the dim lighting, from the tea lights in the nave to the toned-down electrical lighting of the Nine Alters. I was drawn naturally into reverie, comfortably held in the warmth of the light, drifting in and out of various thoughts, unsure of what I should be listening for, but not overly concerned about it. After having spent some time wandering, I decided to sit in a pew. My mind wandered to a conversation I had had with Seif El Rashidi, the World Heritage Site co-ordinator, months earlier. We had sat in his office late in the afternoon of a warm summer’s day, the walls of his magnolia office illuminated in a hazy red tinge. During the conversation, we discussed the feeling of the Cathedral during the day, which was influenced by the stewards and the Cathedral rules, such as no pictures. Seif concluded that

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the building itself seemed to maintain a welcoming yet professional feeling, commenting that whilst you can enter the building and enjoy it, there is a definite boundary, a line of propriety of which one is very aware and does not cross. In this environment, however, that line seemed to have faded with the lighting. Feeling a sense of comfort, I glanced across at the woman sitting on the base of a column, her legs now crossed and her head tipped back, leaning against the stone column. I felt immersed in the atmosphere and decided to lie down on the pew. With my feet up, my legs crossed and my shoes somewhere at the back of the Cathedral, I mindlessly stared up at the ceiling of the nave, which was covered in long sprawling shadows that quivered as the candlelight below flickered weakly. In this lighting, there was a freer and homelier atmosphere. It was a comforting, embracing light that played upon the surface of the building without truly illuminating it, instead encouraging the trembling shadows high above me. I felt invited to engage with the building as my eyes and mind contemplated the architecture. The second occasion that led me to think more closely about the ways in which light impacts how we engage with space was a brief encounter late one winter evening, long after the general public had left. I was standing in the centre of the transept crossing, beneath the central tower, waiting to climb the tower to join the bell ringers’ practice. In contrast to the warm candlelit atmosphere of ‘Free to Be’, the Cathedral was now in near darkness. The warmth of the building had been completely lost and there were no candles emitting a comforting glow. The space in which I had been invited to wander freely and ‘listen for God’ seemed like a distant memory. The sense of the space had shifted. I suddenly felt that I was very small in a very big building. In this light, it seemed that the building had increased in size. The ceiling was higher and the nave and side aisles longer, stretching off into blackness. I imagined Benedictine monks walking down the nave and into the quire through this darkness and the quire being lit by the warm candlelight I had experienced during ‘Free to Be’. ‘You don’t often get to experience Durham Cathedral like this do you?’ one of the bell ringers asked, joining me in the central crossing and peering up at a pinpoint of light from the belfry we would soon climb up to, well over 100 feet above our heads. ‘I always make sure I get to practise a little bit earlier than we need to so that I can come and stand here. It feels so different in the dark. Can you imagine what it must have felt like to have lived here?’ Our conversation was interrupted by the arrival of the rest of the bell ringers. We left the darkness and began the climb up the 325 steps to the lit room above.

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Between the Darkness and the Light My experiences of ‘Free to Be’ and standing in the dark Cathedral showed me that light is more than a two-dimensional experience of bright lighting versus darkness. I was drawn to the fragile balance of light and dark, in which the tones, colours and even textures of space transform, creating an affective space that draws the viewer in. Indeed, Mikkel Bille and Tom Flohr Sørenson suggest that ‘the appearance of the world is determined by the changing lightscapes cast by the shadows in the relationship between things, persons and light’ (2007: 267, emphasis in the original). Whilst one cannot ‘touch, smell, hear, or taste a shadow’ (ibid.), shadows nevertheless play an integral role in the way we experience the environment. In both of the above examples, the change in lighting resulted in a new awareness of the role played by light in my engagement with Durham Cathedral, with the interplay of light and shadow on the stone architecture generating new dimensions of the building’s materiality. This led me not to listen for God but to become pleasantly lost in the experience of the light and architecture and to reconsider Seif ’s words about the perceptible line of propriety that can be perceived in the light of day. In my light-induced reverie, beneath the long sprawling shadows of the Cathedral, that line became less defined as I reclined on the pew, with my feet up, as if at the invitation of the changed lighting. Just as the artificial lighting of Durham Cathedral, both outside and inside, draws attention to the texture of the stone and the lines of the architecture, the building reveals a different dimension of itself through shadow. As Tim Edensor points out, ‘inside sacred buildings, light connotes the presence and agency of divinity while also enhancing the sensuous qualities of interior space’ (2017: 41). As such, light should be regarded as a building material in its own right (Bille and Sørensen 2007: 270). Whilst it does not support the structural weight of the building, it adds to the design and experience, just like other building materials do. In discussing the role of light, Katherine Sorrell asserts that it ‘creates atmosphere, highlights and sculpts areas, and opens up spaces, influencing not just how you look at them but also how you feel about them’, suggesting that ‘the better the light the better our sense and appreciation of a space’ (2005: 58). However, what Sorrell calls ‘better’ light is not necessarily brighter light, but rather a light that suits the intended ambiance of the space. Tanizaki, in writing about the toilets of a Nara or Kyoto temple, highlights the importance of light in the experience of a Japanese toilet not in terms of its brightness, as in Western toilets, but rather in terms of the enjoyment of ‘basking in the faint glow reflected from the shoji’ (2001: 9). Aligning himself with Tanizaki, Juhani Pallasmaa argues that in architecture ‘deep shadows and darkness are essential, because they dim the sharpness

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of vision, make depth and distance ambiguous, and invite unconscious peripheral vision and tactile fantasy’ (2012: 50). In Durham Cathedral, it is not the light that ignites the imagination and leads us to admire the lines of the building, but the interplay between light and dark, which creates textures and colours, producing a particular atmosphere in the building. Just as Tanizaki suggests that the strong bright lights of ‘Western’ toilets convey a sense of sterile cleanliness, intensely bright lights can detract from the atmosphere and experience. As Pallasmaa writes, ‘the shadow gives shape and life to the object in light’ (ibid.: 51). This importance of light in architecture and the creation of the right experience for the right space were highlighted by the Cathedral architect, Chris Cotton, during a presentation on his work at Durham Cathedral. Commenting on the role of light in his design for the newly refurbished Cathedral shop in the undercroft, he stated: The space previously was really quite a dark, dismal space . . . We devised, first of all, a lighting scene which would illuminate the building itself so that you would always have the architecture on display, the concept being that Durham Cathedral’s shop needs to feel like Durham Cathedral and it should be a space that you should just go to and see what you like, even if you don’t want to buy something at the shop. The other aspect of that was the actual fittings themselves should be self-contained with all the display illuminations self-contained, so that the display lights can be switched off at night but the architectural lights can be left on.

The architect’s lighting design has become one of the key features of the shop, with many visitors commenting not on the items for sale, but on the illumination of both the items for sale and the Cathedral itself. The architect partially attributed the 59 per cent increase in takings in the Cathedral shop in the first year after the refurbishment to the lighting system. The above comments also show that the interplay between light and dark is an integral part of architecture, both new and ancient, revealing new dimensions of the stonework through the shadows created by light. As Pallasmaa points out, in many ways light today has been reduced to its quantitative power (2012: 51), being used simply to see and thereby neglecting its qualitative power, which can enhance our experience of a space.

Atmosphere and Metaphor As I hope I have made clear, it is this experience of light that I am concerned with, not the illumination of objects. In discussing both sight and sound, Paul Stoller argues that since the ‘period of alphabetization’ that led to the

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Figure 5.3.  The illuminated undercroft after its refurbishment. © Arran J. Calvert.

sounds of words being spatialized, ‘the eye and its “gaze” . . . has had a lock hold on Western thought’ (1984: 560). This has resulted in a tendency to view ‘illuminated things’ as opposed to the light illuminating the thing. As Tim Ingold put it, ‘We know what it means to hear sound but have effectively lost touch with the experience of light’ (2000: 253, emphasis in the original). With these words in mind, we will momentarily shift our attention from that which is being illuminated – namely, the architecture of Durham Cathedral – to the medium through which illumination is experienced, the difficult-to-pin-down notion of atmosphere. Being, as we are, constantly immersed in our environment, that environment is experienced qualitatively, driving an ‘emotional participation’ (Hasse 2011: 52–53). As Jürgen Hasse argues, spaces that are experienced qualitatively ‘cannot be analyzed gnostically, but are to be perceived in their instant totality as atmosphere’ (ibid.: 57). Atmosphere then becomes an articulation of the environment’s presence, which is sensed bodily as a relationship between people, things and space (Grant 2013: 20). However, when we do sense atmosphere, it is ‘always partial, insofar as an atmosphere is never fully disclosed to something immersed in that ­atmosphere – hence its allure’ (McCormack 2018: 4). As such, atmospheres are ontologically indeterminate; we are not entirely sure what they are and yet they seem to surround us, filling the space with particular feelings. Thus,

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atmosphere is a perceptible yet diffuse and ethereal aspect of the environment and light is an essential element in the experience of atmosphere. In addition, light’s role as a metaphor affects the way it is experienced in Durham Cathedral. For as long as light has been understood as a means by which we see and experience the world around us, it has also been linked to ideas of truth and righteousness, as far back as Plato’s analogy of the sun, in which the sun represents ‘Goodness’. The eighteenth-century Enlightenment was a period of increased questioning of the world around us, socially, religiously and scientifically. The French term for this period, ‘Le Siècle des Lumières’, translates literally as ‘The Century of Lights’, tying the concept of light to increasing knowledge and understanding. In Christianity, light is closely associated with creation. In the opening lines of Genesis, the earth is a shapeless void under a shroud of darkness until light is created. Craig Koslofsky’s (2011) history of night in early modern Europe highlights the negative associations of darkness (e.g. witchcraft, heresy) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. However, Edensor points out that ‘darkness is profoundly ambivalent’; as well as being seen as negative ‘and antithetical to enlightenment and reason’, it has also been portrayed positively, stimulating the rise of new forms of worship and piety, ‘metaphorically encapsulating the religious struggle towards the light and the path from earthly gloom to illuminated afterlife’ (2015: 428). During Easter, the atmospheric and metaphorical importance of light in the experience of Durham Cathedral again came to my attention. During the Stripping of the Altar service on Maundy Thursday and the Easter dawn liturgy on the morning of Easter Sunday, light was consciously used to create a connection between those attending the services and the associated biblical happenings.

The Stripping of the Altar I was sitting in the stalls of the quire, the Stripping of the Altar service was underway and the clergy was moving through the liturgy, acting out the events of the Last Supper. Darkness had fallen outside and the focus was on the quire. The lights of the nave had not been lit, so the quire was bathed in a pool of light, surrounded by the darkness of the night. Before long, the service arrived at the Rite of the Judas Cup, which, according to my service booklet, was a ‘dramatic re-enactment’ and attempt to ‘translate that ritual into modern terms’. Playing the role of Jesus, the Dean poured wine into a wooden drinking bowl and said, ‘Alas for that man by whom the son of man is betrayed.’ The rest of the clergy, each assuming the role of a disciple at the Last Supper, asked in turn, ‘Lord, is it I?’ After drinking from the

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bowl, the Dean passed it around the table. As the performance went on, the disciples proclaimed, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you.’ Finally, as the Last Supper concluded, the Dean announced, ‘It was night’, whereupon the lights of the Cathedral were lowered, as they might be for a theatre production. Having been plunged into darkness, the clergy moved silently through the shadows of the quire, removing the altar clothes, banners and hangings, as a low lamentation from the choir filled the dense air. The shadows in the nave seemed to direct all focus to the quire, the spiritual centre of the building, which, as the ringing lamentation ended, was left bare. At this point, the clergy left the dark quire and processed up to the Galilee Chapel in silence, followed by the choir and congregation. Having moved with the congregation through the darkened nave, I reached the Galilee Chapel and found that there, too, darkness prevailed. All around the edges of the chapel, dark figures stood silently, facing the central altar, their features weakly illuminated by several small candles behind an altar screen. The weak light casting shadows against the walls and the faces of the congregation, creating a warm sense of togetherness. In the darkness, the bishop read from the final page of the service booklet: ‘They went to a place called Gethsemane; and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”’ He finished with the line, ‘Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand.’ He left the congregation in silence. We remained behind, gathered together in the warm glow of light emanating from the other side of what looked like the brow of a hill within the Galilee Chapel. This darkness had left me somewhat disorientated. As I looked around for faces I recognized, I felt an odd sense of togetherness. For over twenty minutes, silent figures looked intently towards the light, shifting their weight from one foot to another, taking seats, some on the pews, some on the floor. At the end of the vigil, the candles, like those in the quire, were extinguished, representing, I was told as I was exiting the Cathedral, the darkness of the world without God.

The Easter Dawn Liturgy The mood that had been created by the light during the evening service on Maundy Thursday lingered on Good Friday, the most solemn day in the Cathedral’s calendar, and into Easter Sunday. Indeed, it was not until Easter Monday that the lights were turned on again. In the cold still air of the cloister garth, the small patch of grass in the centre of the cloister, the Vice Dean said: ‘In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered

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the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said, “Let there be light.”’ I had awoken before dawn and made my way up to the Cathedral in the dark. I was standing in the cloister at 5 am, three days after the dark vigil in the Galilee Chapel. Moments earlier, the choir and clergy had entered the cloister garth through the Chapter House and floated ghost-like, barely visible in their white garments, through the darkness. Having read the opening lines of Genesis, and after much striking of matches and flicking of an unseen lighter, a small bonfire began to smoke and the precentor was able to say, ‘And there was light’, prompting an amused chuckle that rippled through all sides of the full cloister walks. As the bonfire began to burn brightly in the centre of the garth, the darkness of the night also began to lift, revealing the people around me. With the lighting of the bonfire and the rising sun brightening the cloister, the language of the service began to lighten. The bishop proclaimed, ‘This is the night in which our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life . . . We share in his victory over death.’ After a number of prayers and psalms, a flame torch was lit and a procession of acolytes, clergy, candidates for baptism and confirmation, and the choir left the now fully illuminated cloister and headed into the still unlit Cathedral. Having moved through the Cathedral and said prayers at various points, and having lit the Paschal candle, the deacon led the procession through the Cathedral and down to the Scott Screen, which separates the nave from the quire. We, the congregation, had each been given a candle as we entered the nave and were passing the flame from candle to candle, thereby sharing the light of God, received from the Paschal candle, with those around us. Once everyone had lit their candles and filtered into the pews of the nave, and the deacon had chanted from the pulpit, the bishop exclaimed at the top of his voice, ‘Alleluia! Christ is risen.’ The service booklet instructed us to ‘Reply with a great shout, “He is risen indeed. Alleluia!”’. At this point, raucous noise filled the Cathedral as people revealed previously unseen hand drums, whistles, bells, clackers and even huge flags, which were held high and swooped from side to side in huge arcs. Even the organ played loudly, though it was at first almost drowned out by the noise in the nave. At the same time, the lights of the Cathedral, which had been low since we had entered the cloister, were raised to their full brightness. The dark heavy atmosphere of the last three days was lifted by the lights that now illuminated the building, both atmospherically and metaphorically. As the services over the Easter period highlight, not only is light a practical necessity, it is also consciously utilized in a qualitative way by the clergy to create senses and feelings, producing an atmosphere that induces a particular mindset, whilst also playing out spiritual metaphors in the space of the

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Cathedral. The use of light in these situations creates an affective atmosphere reinforced by the emotional participation of the congregation. As Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari point out, ‘affects are becomings’ (1987: 256), in whatever shape they may take. Thus, the darkened atmosphere of Maundy Thursday, resulting from the absence of God, through to the renewing of the light and the sharing of the Paschal flame from the sacred fire lit in the cloister garth can be seen as a renewal of faith and community through light. Similarly, the light played an important metaphorical role in trying to find God spiritually in the candlelit Cathedral and also in representing the role of Jesus himself, over the brow of a hill at the Garden of Gethsemane. When I was leaving after the vigil, the person who had explained the metaphorical meaning of the darkness commented on the sense of closeness to God, saying that in that moment, it was as if God was within reach, just beyond the altar screen. During the Stripping of the Altar service, as the lights were lowered when night fell in the story, and as the clergy of the Cathedral removed the altar clothes, banners and hangings, the atmosphere of both the service and the building changed. The darkened quire and the low lamentation of the choir gave rise not only to a sense of sadness but also to a sense of foreboding, despite the warm and genial atmosphere created by the building’s interior lights. This sense of sadness and foreboding persisted as we moved into the Galilee Chapel, where the image of Jesus praying in the garden of Gethsemane was evoked. In this instance, we, the congregation, took on the role of the waiting disciples. In discussing the atmosphere, it is important to remember that light is only one of the elements shaping and changing the atmosphere. Other elements include the sounds produced by the choir and the symbolic words and actions of the clergy playing their roles in the Last Supper and stripping the quire of any decoration. These elements, along with the beliefs of those present, shaped and intensified the atmosphere, which emanated outwards as a ‘quasi-autonomous . . . affective “excess” through which intensive spacetimes can be created’ (Anderson 2009: 80). In exploring the atmosphere as a unity of elements, such as light, sound and actions, along with beliefs and symbols, ‘the character of locality is produced’ (Böhme 1993: 124), creating the feelings and sensations that are unique to that space and that moment in time. While in this instance that unique character of locality aimed to recall another time in another space, the next chapter will explore how the recreation of another space and time is perhaps better understood as a co-spatiotemporal event in which the Eucharist, the taking of bread and wine at the Last Supper, as seen in the quire during the Stripping of the Altar, is made present and actual through the original sacrifice.

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However, atmosphere in everyday experience is not the result of one element and then another but rather the result of total immersion in the world. The atmosphere created during these Easter services constitutes ‘an embodied performance of atmosphere for an anticipated audience’ (Grant 2013: 24). This embodied performance of atmosphere in Durham Cathedral told the story of the final days of Jesus’s life as well as engaging with the congregation on an experiential level, allowing them not just to witness a recreation, but also to live it. The experience of Durham Cathedral is not the result of the building impressing itself upon an individual, but rather an interaction between the individual and Durham Cathedral, the ‘environmental qualities and human states’ (Böhme 1993: 114). Consequently, it is a highly personal, embodied experience created not just by light, but also by sounds, tastes, feelings, memories, smells and touch; thus, each individual has a unique view of and relationship with Durham Cathedral. As such, atmospheres are multiple and cause ‘affect, emotion, and sensation’ (Edensor 2012: 1103), with lighting being a ‘crucial ingredient in the atmospheric qualities’ of space (ibid.: 1119).

Chapter 6

Space and Time in Durham Cathedral

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Introduction As I have shown in the previous two chapters, the experience of Durham Cathedral is one of engagement with the building that is unique to the individual. Central to this experience are the use and creation of time and space. In this chapter, I will explore how the community creates both time and space through a process of constant negotiation with the building, highlighting the tensions that arise between differing qualities of time in Durham Cathedral. As mentioned, the reasons people visit Durham Cathedral are diverse, ranging from worship to having a coffee with friends, from sightseeing as a tourist to looking for a quiet space for meditation. The negotiation necessary within the finite space was often apparent and at times difficult. For example, it was not unusual to see school children on trips walking excitedly along the nave, past people praying, whilst another group busily rearranged the furniture for upcoming services. All groups had to use the same space at the same time and each had to negotiate time and space with the others. In relation to the manner in which we talk about time, Wendy James and David Mills point out that ‘we have an interesting habit of invoking shape, regularity, and rhythm as we speak of and enact, the “timings” of the actions and events we take part in, or learn from others’ (2005, p.5). In Durham Cathedral, shape, regularity and rhythm were a constant during my fieldwork and was structured by the ‘fortnightly’ which would hang all around the Cathedral and even down in the city centre. At first glance, the

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fortnightly seems simply to be a timetable of scheduled events; however, a closer look reveals distinctive shapes and rhythms in the social and spiritual life of Durham Cathedral. ‘Here, sort your robe out and give me a hand with these.’ It was Sunday and, as usual, I was stewarding and struggling to keep my purple robe, worn by the stewards, evenly placed on both shoulders. John, carrying a large pile of A3 paper, was shouting over to me to help him: ‘I want you to take down the old fortnightlies while I put the new ones up. Here, take this one and put it behind the information desk.’ He handed me a sheet and off I went to the information desk, taking down the old ‘fortnightlies’ on my way. Following the standard Georgian calendar, the fortnightly outlines the activities of the Cathedral over a two-week period. It was often my job as a Sunday steward to retrieve the old fortnightlies and replace them with the plan for the coming two-week period. As can be seen in figure 6.1, which depicts a random two-week period from my time in the field, the fortnightly is a complex incorporation of several different calendrical rhythms that exist alongside one another. Beginning at the top, the fortnightly shows the dates ‘17 February 2014 – 2 March 2014’. Down the two margins are the days of the week and specific days of remembrance. For example, Monday the 17th marks the death of Janani Luwum, Archbishop of Uganda, who was murdered in 1977. In the Church of England, Luwum is considered a martyr and the anniversary of his death is celebrated by the Anglican Communion as a Lesser Festival on the 17th of February each year. Although attached to specific dates in the calendar, the observation of Lesser Festivals are not compulsory. On Saturday the 22nd, William Van Mildert, Bishop of Durham (who died in 1836) is named. Van Mildert is an important figure in the history of Durham Cathedral. He was the last Prince Bishop of Durham and the driving force behind the foundation of Durham University. His inclusion is not for the benefit of the whole Anglican Communion, as was the case with the death of Luwum; rather, it is relevant only to Durham Cathedral and would involve prayers being dedicated to him throughout the day’s services. Also shown in the margin are Sexagesima and Quinquagesima (the second Sunday before Lent and the last Sunday before Lent respectively). Whilst the use of both ‘Sexagesima’ and ‘Quinquagesima’ varies across Christian denominations, in the Church of England they were the words used for those dates in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer calendar. The titles were changed in the 2000 Common Worship calendar to ‘The Second Sunday Before Lent’ and ‘The Sunday Next Before Lent’, but in the Cathedral fortnightly both titles are used.

Figure 6.1.  Example of a fortnightly. Public domain.

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The margin contains internationally significant dates for the Anglican Church, nationally significant dates and regionally significant dates. Many of these dates are not large festivals but do have an effect on services in some small way. Often, this is through a set of prayers being dedicated to the particular marker in the calendar on the given day. Even in such a brief introduction to what is in the margins of one week in the fortnightly, a clear picture begins to emerge of the complicated rhythms of liturgical and historical meaningfulness for the region, the Church of England and Christianity, which are drawn together in the daily life of Durham Cathedral today. This complex layering of calendars in the daily life of the Cathedral is nothing new. The Benedictine community also had their own means of keeping a record of important markers in these cycles of liturgical and historical meaningfulness, as can be seen in ‘The Durham Cantor’s Book’, now held in the Cathedral archives (Durham, Dean and Chapter Library, MS B.IV.24). This collection of miscellaneous manuscripts relating to the life of the monastery includes a calendar and the ‘Martyrology of Usuard’. According to A.J. Piper (1994: 85), the intention behind the calendar in the Cantor’s Book had been to record important obituaries that needed to be observed. However, in practice, it was the margins of the martyrology – a calendar detailing the feast or anniversary dates of Church martyrs and saints – that were used for notes about any new deaths. What is particularly interesting about the martyrology is that it does not seem to have been originally intended for Durham Cathedral Priory (ibid.: 83). The names of significant northern saints, Cuthbert and Oswald, although ornamentally written, are quite clearly later additions to the manuscript. As such, the rhythm of recorded dates clashed with that of Durham’s important dates, with initial entries on the feast days of the Northern Saints being erased to make the martyrology fit with the rhythmical requirements of Durham Cathedral Priory. According to Piper (ibid.), other entries in the martyrology reveal possible clues as to its origins and its journey northwards to Durham, such as references to the Benedictine house of Fleury in the Loire Valley, France, and the Fenland Monastery of Ramsey in Cambridgeshire. There are striking similarities between how the Durham Cantor’s Book and the modern-day fortnightlies are used: both set the rhythm of the year and are infused with multiple ‘layers’ of rhythm. These layers of rhythm relate to liturgical and historical meaningfulness, whether that be of local, national or international importance, including feasts, festivals and saints’ days. The alterations and additions to the martyrology of the Cantor’s Book from other monasteries further afield not only show that each individual monastery had its own rhythms, which included important events relevant

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to their monasteries or regions; they also show that the negotiation of time in monasteries like Durham Cathedral Priory has always been an element of daily life.

Rhythms/Qualities/Tensions It is not surprising that a close inspection of these religious calendars reveals various rhythms, as well as the tensions that sometimes arise between them. As Henri Hubert argues, the role of the religious calendar ‘is not to measure time, but to endow it with rhythm’, placing religious rites in a historical time and endowing them with a rhythm which periodically passes through these rites (1999: 49). Thus, religious time frequently, but not always, differs from the ‘common idea of time’ and has a periodical character. That is, critical dates ‘break up particular durations’, durations being the divisions of time as expressed in ‘numbers of days, months or years’ (ibid.: 51). Today, religious time in Durham Cathedral involves not one, but many calendars, from the periodically returning feasts and saints’ days of the Christian and Anglican calendars to the calendar of significant local historical events, as well as the daily rhythm of the Morning Prayers and Evensongs, and the rhythm of the 150 psalms that need to be observed every month. The fortnightly draws together these layers of time. However, this results in tensions as the separate rhythms are associated with different qualities of time, with each needing to be negotiated within the Cathedral. In Clifford Geertz’s description of the Balinese permutational calendar, he argues that it does not express time as durational but rather as punctual, used to distinguish and classify ‘discrete, self-subsisting particles of time’, which have qualitative aspects that relate to various combinations of day-names. The cycles and super-cycles of this permutational calendar do not ‘tell you what time it is; they tell you what kind of time it is’ (1973: 392–93). There is a similarity between the qualitative aspect of the permutational calendar’s ‘kind of time’ and that of the days and durations (such as the Easter or Christmas periods) of Durham Cathedral’s fortnightlies. As I have shown in the previous chapters, the atmospheres, in part created through sound, light and shadow, further infuse these specific days with specific qualities, in accordance with the periodically returning quality of time regulated by the calendar, as ‘the same dates bring back the same events’ (Hubert 1999: 58) and so the atmosphere of the event is kept homogeneous. This ‘sameness’ is a homogeneity of ‘active qualities’, as Hubert explains: If a certain quality enters into the representation of each section of time, this will naturally be conceived of as being equally distributed in all its parts; if

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one thinks of it solely in respect of this quality, each period will necessarily be homogeneous in relation to itself. (1999: 61)

Thus, the rhythm of the calendar, along with its quantitative elements, becomes intertwined with quality; whether we have a good time or a bad time, our expectations for the ‘same’ event in the future become linked to our experiences and their qualities. Furthermore, these qualities, and by extension our own or a community’s experience of these qualities, filter through the multiple layers (Anglican, Benedictine, local history, etc.) of the calendar. As a result, calendars become endowed with both a quantitative and qualitative rhythm. With these diverse, quality-infused layers of rhythm in Durham Cathedral’s fortnightlies, the inevitable difficulties that arise must be negotiated as the ‘“symbolic” theories of time’s rhythms’ play out in the ‘actualities of human life’ (James and Mills 2005: 2). An illustration of such collisions in time quality came during the Lenten period of my fieldwork. Lent in Durham Cathedral, as in all churches, has a very distinctive quality. It is solemn and self-reflective. With the aid of the choir and particular musical settings, the atmosphere of the building, community and services naturally becomes solemn and reflective, as discussed earlier. This particular season of Lent, however, coincided not only with the Feast of the Annunciation of the Birth of Jesus Christ, but also with Durham’s local, historically significant day the Feast of St Cuthbert. St Cuthbert is the region’s, and Durham Cathedral’s, most important saint; he is the saint to whom the Cathedral is dedicated and the reason for the establishment of a community and priory in Durham. The Feast of St Cuthbert is, undoubtedly, a celebration. This Lenten period therefore presented the clergy with a clash between two very differently perceived qualities of time, which resulted in the clergy having to tell the congregation the ‘quality’ of time associated with this particular service. Taking my seat in the quire for Evensong and the festal procession, my service booklet in hand, the minister for the evening, dressed in fine, richly coloured robes, processed into the packed quire, turned to the gathered congregation and said: Good evening and welcome to this special Evensong and festal procession in celebration of the life of St Cuthbert. And whilst we are still in observation of Lent, this is a time for celebration, and we must therefore not feel guilty about the sounds and words which we will hear this evening, for, as I say, this is an occasion to celebrate a most miraculous life.

This act of telling the congregation not to feel guilty about hearing sounds of celebration during the period of Lent is significant. The short explanation

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from the minister highlights the reality of the quality-infused rhythmical layers of the calendar and how they can, at times, come into conflict, necessitating negotiation on the part of the community. The tensions arising from qualitatively different times are not limited to the fortnightly calendar, but are also at play in the minds of individuals. In order to deal with this, the mind must continuously work to adjust the preconceived conventions associated with particular periods of time – for example, the sombre tones of the Lenten period – to allow for ‘a succession of new “representations”’. James and Mills call this ‘the struggle to adjust between rhythmic expectation and actual event’ (2005: 8). However, because it is fair to assume that the rhythm of time does not structure itself around ‘the natural periodicities established by experience, but that societies contain within themselves the need and the means of instituting it’ (Hubert 1999: 71–72), it is also reasonable to assume that it is up to the community as a whole to negotiate the tensions that arise as a result. In the case of the collision of the Feast of St Cuthbert and Lent, the solution was a simple explanation from the presiding minister to clarify the qualitative expectation of the feast and the service. While the collision of the Feast of St Cuthbert and Lent resulted in tension related to the perceived quality of time and not a collision of space, the difficulty of creating space for the activities in the fortnightly is a common aspect of life in Durham Cathedral. Although the qualitative collision of Lent and the Feast of St Cuthbert was resolved simply by telling people not to feel guilty, as in the case of the Feast of the Annunciation discussed in chapter 4, dealing with the tension of finding space, along with time, rhythm and quality in Durham Cathedral, often has the potential to cause greater difficulties. During my many discussions with members of the Durham Cathedral community, I frequently heard it said that the Cathedral could be whatever you wanted it to be: a place of worship, a place to meet friends, a good bookshop, a tourist attraction or simply a place to sit and think. ‘The Cathedral can be all of these things at the same time, which I think is very important, that it can and is able to be all of these things at the same time’, one volunteer steward explained. We were sitting at the foot of the central tower on a Sunday afternoon, waiting for visitors to pay their money to climb the tower and watching the clergy say goodbye to the congregation. Meanwhile, a team of vergers had begun to dismantle the staging in the crossing. At other times, however, the opposite was true and Durham Cathedral was a place of worship only. An example of this was Good Friday. As I reached the Cathedral on Good Friday, I found the North Door (the main door in and out the Cathedral) closed; instead, people were entering through the Galilee Chapel’s north door. Approaching the Galilee door, I was

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greeted by a sign that read, ‘Today is Good Friday, the most solemn day of the Christian year. You are welcome to any of our services, otherwise, access is very limited. The Tower, Restaurant and Shop are all closed.’ However, it was during the Flower Festival at the very beginning of my fieldwork that I witnessed first-hand the many different layers of time that can, at times, coincide and contradict each other in terms of their quality. These spatiotemporal collisions in the daily life of Durham Cathedral lead to a process of continuous negotiation and improvisation as the community navigates its way through the tensions of rhythm and quality contained in the layers of the fortnightly.

The Flower Festival The Flower Festival is an annual event that takes place in a different location every year. It had previously been held in Durham Cathedral in 1997, when it attracted over forty thousand visitors. Entitled ‘Jewels of the North’, in 2013 the theme took as its main focus the Northern Saints and the Lindisfarne Gospels, which had been on display in Palace Green Library, on a three-month loan from the British Library. Preparations for the festival had been underway for months prior to my arrival. The Cathedral would be divided into sections within which there would be a variety of different flower arrangements. It was going to be a busy and important event for the Cathedral, which expected to receive around six thousand visitors a day over the six days of the festival. ‘It’s important to remember’, explained Anne Heywood, the Cathedral’s visitor co-ordinator during a training session for the volunteer stewards, ‘that the main task of this, for us, is to raise money for the Open Treasure Project, and although this is going to be disruptive to the day-to-day life of the Cathedral, it’s happening and we’ve just got to be flexible and get on with it.’ That is, tension arose between the Flower Festival and other layers of the Cathedral’s calendar. It was not until I walked into the Cathedral a few days before the start of the festival that I realized the truth of Anne’s words. In the usually neat and tidy Cathedral, there were now countless stacks of buckets, pallets of flowers, toolboxes, cardboard boxes, black bin bags, rolls of red ribbon, mountains of green foam, discarded flower stems, scissors, and secateurs, and step ladders all around the nave. In contrast to the usual hushed tones of people whispering, a cherry picker was being driven down the aisle to secure four huge banners, which had been hoisted into position between the massive columns of the north aisle. Taking a seat in a pew halfway down the nave, I watched a group of flower arrangers in a huddle at a blank stretch of wall, examining it as if it was a piece of art, deliberating over how best to approach whatever their

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task was. Everywhere I looked, flower arrangers negotiated their way around the building and its furniture, climbing onto the high altar, tying flowers to the walls with reams of ribbon. A beleaguered-looking porter declared loudly that he just ‘want[ed] things left where they are’, while another flower arranger moved a large decorative candlestick out of her way. Visitors to the Cathedral wandered around amongst the legions of flower arrangers, standing amid the black bags and discarded flower stems, leaning over cardboard boxes to read signs and watching flower arrangers compose their artistic designs. Further down the nave, another group of arrangers considered yet another blank stretch of wall, but in this case, one person pointed with a green laser pen at various points on the wall, explaining loudly how best to use the space. As these calendrical rhythms play out in the everyday situated reality of the Cathedral, they can disrupt both the quality of time and the quality of space. In the example of the Feast of St Cuthbert, it disrupted the quality of time; during the festival, however, it was the space that needed to be negotiated. As I sat in a pew writing some notes, an older man with a young girl, around the age of eight or nine, slid into the pew in front of me. They leant forward in silence and after a minute or so leant back to observe the busyness around them. ‘Did you say your prayer?’ the man asked the young girl. ‘Yeah,’ she replied, looking up at the high ceiling of the nave. The man sat in silence. The young girl fidgeted in her seat, distracted by the activity around her. ‘Are you alright?’ she asked the man. ‘Yes, I’m just thinking.’ The young girl nodded in understanding and turned to watch a group of flower arrangers who had set to work on an arrangement at the base of a nearby column. After a few more minutes had passed, a Cathedral listener, a volunteer trained to listen to the problems of those in need of a sympathetic ear, approached the pair with a smile. The man stood up and stretched out his hand to greet the listener before sitting and returning to his silent state once more. Sliding into a pew in front of the pair, the listener and the man began to chat about the busy nature of the Cathedral. The man explained, ‘The wife and daughter are shopping, so I’ve brought my granddaughter here. I try to bring the young ’uns here every couple of months so that they know the place.’ They were interrupted by a loud voice from the speaker system, alerting everybody that Holy Communion was about to begin in the Galilee Chapel. A few minutes later, in the noisy, busy and untidy nave, a black-robed verger strode silently up the central aisle, an ornate silver staff clutched in one hand, followed by a fully gowned member of the clergy, head bowed and hands clasped. Together, they made their way in solemn

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Figure 6.2.  The Galilee Chapel. © Arran J. Calvert.

silence through the hustle and bustle of the flower arrangers and tourists, towards the Galilee Chapel. In Durham Cathedral, there are multiple, coexisting, intersecting layers of differing time rhythms and qualities. Firstly, the flower arrangers rushing around with all the urgency of a group that is short on time, interacting with a porter whose daily rhythm of ‘things being left where they are’ is being disrupted, visibly causing him discomfort. Additionally, there is the grandfather and his granddaughter, who seem to be seeking a calmer, more reflective quality of time. Furthermore, whilst the qualitative atmosphere of the Cathedral is not what it usually is, the two maintain their own quiet and relaxed quality of time within the noise; no doubt, this subdued quality is the result of their own rhythmical expectation of Durham Cathedral. However, the organization of the Flower Festival collided with the daily rhythms of Cathedral life, creating a tension between the festival and, for instance, the qualitative expectation of Holy Communion. The rhythmical nature of the Midday Eucharist religious service, which is as regular as clockwork, had to fit into the context of the Flower Festival. Whilst these various, contrasting qualities were in tension with one another, they seemed to operate without any major difficulty. It was not until the next day that there was a discussion about the tensions arising from their differing qualities of time being so close spatially. ‘The Galilee is no good apparently.’

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‘What? Why?’ ‘It was too noisy for communion and people were walking around disrupting it all.’ I had been sitting in the Cathedral office, waiting to conduct an interview, when two office workers stopped and began this conversation. ‘So where does he want to do it?’ ‘I don’t know, but we’re going to have to get it sorted.’ ‘Does he want us to kick everyone out of there for communion or something?’ ‘I think so.’ They both heaved a sigh and continued in different directions. In the training manual I had been given by Anne Heywood, it seemed that the necessity of having somewhere for those who wished to find a quiet spot had been thought about. ‘Quiet prayer and thought are not going to be easy in the Cathedral. Access to the Gregory Chapel will be possible but potentially difficult more on “Health and Safety” grounds than anything else.’ It had been suggested that the Chapel of the Holy Cross, situated at the back of the Cathedral, beneath the Dean’s lodgings, would be an acceptable solution. However, ‘atmospheric bird noises’ would be played in the small space as part of the festival. The tension, then, was between the expectation of having a quiet space in which to conduct Holy Communion and the reality of the Cathedral being simply too noisy for it to be possible to conduct a quiet communion as intended. In short, there was a tension between two layers of the fortnightly calendar of Durham Cathedral. This tension came to a head at every Evensong during the Flower Festival. Evensong takes place each day at 5.15 pm, except Sundays, when it is at 3.30 pm. During a conversation with the Dean of Durham Cathedral, he described the rhythms of both Evensong and Morning Prayer as important thresholds at the beginning and end of the day; no matter what was happening in Durham Cathedral, nothing interrupted the rhythmic returning of these two key services. The Flower Festival was scheduled to run till 9 pm every day. However, when it came to 4.45 pm, half an hour before the start of Evensong, the stewards would begin to slowly mingle with the many visitors and alert them that Evensong would soon begin and that, during this time, the Cathedral would be closed to those who did not wish to attend. As the beginning of the service drew closer, stewards gently guided visitors to  the back of the nave and behind the red velvet rope, which separated those not wishing to attend the service from the Cathedral beyond. During this time, I was often asked to stand at the rope and ask guests if they were there for the service; if not, they would not be allowed past the rope. The whole process was done skilfully and without fuss; each day

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I found that I was surprised that they had managed to silently usher so many people out of the Cathedral so efficiently. Sitting by the rope during Evensong, I would observe the service being conducted in the quire, the sound spilling out into the nave. At the back, visitors would come into the Cathedral and stop to watch a few minutes of the service before asking when they could come back to view the flowers. Then they would disappear out into the cloisters, returning once the service had ended and the Cathedral was again open to all. These spatial boundaries and the management of space and people aided the negotiation of the calendar layers of the Flower Festival and the Evensong and Morning Prayer.

Making Time and Space As the events of the Flower Festival and the Feast of St Cuthbert during Easter reveal, the tensions that can arise between layers involving the rhythm and qualities of time and space are a common part of life for the Cathedral community. However, the question remains of how the community deals with multifaceted collisions of multiple calendar layers, which involve tensions associated with space, rhythm and quality. These aspects become important to understand, for, as Hubert implies, the resolution of such tensions lies with the community and social activity (1999: 71). In order to explore these multifaceted collisions, the contrast between sacred time and profane time, which Hubert describes as a ‘contradiction between the notion of the sacred and the notion of time’ (ibid.: 78), may be useful. Sacred time involves ideas of ‘infinitude’ and ‘immutability’ (ibid.:  43) and exists outside our daily experience of time; a grand idea in which the sacred is grounded firmly within the collective society as a whole. Although this may indeed be the case for Durham Cathedral, I am interested in the everyday negotiation of the fortnightly calendar rather than the abstract nature of sacred time described by Mircea Eliade (1959). In his Essay on Time, Hubert criticises Henri Bergson’s more individualistic notions of time. However, in focusing on the experiences of individuals negotiating these tensions of rhythm, space and time, the matter becomes more digestible and easier to comprehend. Nancy D. Munn (1992) argues that no matter what actions we take, we humans and our productions are always in some way in time. Yet, our actions make the time we are in. As such, space and time are integral to one another; neither dimension can be disentangled from the other and so they ‘commingle in various ways’ (ibid.: 94). The result of this is a social life characterized by a lived ‘space-time’ created by the activities of a group of people. Munn outlines this view when she argues that ‘sociocultural action systems (or the

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activities through which they become operative) do not simply go on in or through time and space, but they form (structure) and constitute (create) the “space-time” manifold in which they “go on”’ (1983: 280). Consequently, it is down to the actors to create this ‘manifold’ and, in doing so, create their own space-time in which their activities take place. Therefore, sociocultural space-time is neither individualistic nor uniform, but rather, through peoples actions, each system creates and possesses its own space-time manifold. As a result, different action systems within the same general areas can construct different space-time formations, each of which have their own qualitative dimension. Applying this to that busy day I spent in the Cathedral with the flower arrangers, the porter, tourists, the grandfather and granddaughter, and the cathedral listener, as well as the verger and clergy members, we can view these people’s disconnected activities as different space-times, separately constructed by their different actions. By viewing time and space in the Cathedral in this way, one can bring in different layers of rhythms and qualities, such as those found in the fortnightlies, into the one space of the Cathedral. Furthermore, we can avoid the overgeneralization of a sacred/ profane time dichotomy; rather, both aspects can exist at the same time in the same space within the subgroups of one community. As a result of these multiple space-times, it is possible that simply partaking in a sacred act in the same building does not bring everybody into one sociocultural space-time because, just as there are a variety of ‘profane’ acts, such as tourism and flower arranging, so too are there differing sacred acts, which create different space-times. An example of differing sacred acts in the same time and space is apparent in the layout of Durham Cathedral Priory, which accommodated a monastic community alongside the laity. At the east end of the nave stood two dividing walls: the quire screen, which closed off the quire, and the rood screen, which closed off the entire east end of the Cathedral. Both walls served as a threshold between the secular area and the more ritualized ‘sacred area’. In terms of practicalities, the division allowed lay services to be conducted at the Jesus altar in the nave, whilst the monks performed the daily Offices within the quire. At such times, there existed within Durham Cathedral two different sacred times, which were kept separate and operated completely independently of each other, and it was left to the unattached action-systems to create their own spatiotemporal sacrality independent of each other. The understanding of space and time as commingling through the activities of people, either individually or in groups, to create manifold space-times also reveals how Durham Cathedral can be whatever people need it to be as the various action systems create their own space-time. Through the actions of the groups of flower arrangers, for example, the Cathedral becomes a

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messy hive of busyness and creativity, with its appearance being temporarily changed as they prepare the exhibition of the flower arrangements. However, it is also important to remember that the actions of the flower arrangers do not constitute a totalizing whole in which nothing but the arrangement of the Flower Festival can take place. Rather, the festival is simply one part of all that is possible within the space of the Cathedral. For example, whilst his wife and daughter were down in the city shopping, the old man took the opportunity to acquaint his young granddaughter with the Cathedral. Through their actions of sitting in a pew and leaning forward in silence to pray, they created, for however brief a time, their own space-time, which had a quality of calm and silence within the messy hustle and bustle of the flower arranging. The busy noise of the Cathedral was a novelty for me, as I was more accustomed to the hushed whispers that are most often to be heard in the nave. Yet, as the young girl and her grandfather took their seats and lent forward, clasping their hands together, I immediately felt obliged to alter my own space-time in order to accommodate the close proximity of this newly created space-time. Their body movements, which established their relationship to the divine, impinged on my space-time and, through my understanding of those movements, caused me to alter my space-time, in feeling if not in action. So too the verger, fully cloaked and followed by a minister in full robes, moving slowly through the noisy cathedral, was walking through a not necessarily sacred space, but a vacillatingly sacred space, particularly on that day. As such, the sacred space needed for the communion was not preexistent but was created through the actions of the verger and the minister. As Munn rightfully points out, action is a ‘symbolic (meaningful, and meaningforming) process in which people ongoingly produce both themselves as spatiotemporal beings and the space-time of the wider world’ (1992: 107). It is also important not to forget the actions of the Cathedral itself. Whilst the various groups of people go around creating different space-times, the Cathedral is performing its own action: the action of sacrality. In just the same way as the various action groups create an effective space-time through the employment of recognized actions from which principles emerge, as in the case of the young girl and her grandfather, so too is the Cathedral creating a specific space-time through light, sounds and the building itself, as I have shown in previous chapters. Most importantly, however, is the fact that this is a malleable space-time, and through the decisions of the Chapter, multiple action systems are able to engage in the space of Durham Cathedral, thus creating multiple space-times within it. The various action systems, such as the clergy, the stewards, the worshippers and the building itself, can, at times, align to create a number of spacetimes that have common goals, such as Evensong. As Evensong approaches,

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the stewards work to clear tourists out of the nave of the Cathedral. During Evensong, the clergy conduct the service and the worshippers congregate at the prescribed time for worship. All of them have different actions and thus different action systems, but all have a common goal: a smooth Evensong service. Through these various action systems and the created space-times, it becomes possible to understand the way in which the tensions of rhythm, quality and space, held within the layers of the fortnightly calendar, are negotiated in Durham Cathedral. Whilst this negotiation is an ongoing process, with each collision being dealt with as it arises, the creation of various space-times helps to explain the way in which, as Hubert commented, these adjustments are more a circumstance of social activity than individuals’ own mental processes. That is, space-time is not just something in people’s minds, but rather something that has to be created and enacted through very practical means. For example, delineating space for Evensong in the midst of Lent by stating the shift in the quality of time and reassuring the congregation of its legitimacy. Or the verger and minister initiating communion or the assumption of a specific position of prayer, creating a more sacred space-time in the context of the more profane hustle and bustle of the Flower Festival. Additionally, through these space-times, one sees that, as a consequence of these subsets of the larger community, negotiation becomes a more manageable possibility, as opposed to a system in which every individual must be negotiated with or in which only one action system is given space at any one time. The result of having these smaller action systems, which facilitate more manageable negotiation, is a cathedral that can be ‘whatever you need it to be’ – a setting for the Flower Festival, a place of worship, a tourist attraction and much more besides.

Changing Spaces and Experiencing Easter Whilst it is through the actions of the various groups that numerous spacetimes are created, acts such as the giving of Holy Communion involve an entirely different dimension of time – or rather they lack such a temporal dimension. As François-André Isambert and Henri Hubert state, Given that in fact religious acts take place in space and time, one of the enigmas of ritual is the reconciliation of these inescapable conditions with the infinite extent and the theoretical immutability of the sacred. Ritual must consequently bring into play representations and figurations of space and time necessary to resolve this antinomy. (1999: 18)

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It is with this in mind that I return to the events of Easter and, more specifically, the services of the Stripping of the Altar, which I discussed in the previous chapter in relation to the experience of light, and the Three Hours of Good Friday, focusing on the role of space and time in the experience of both religious services.

Maundy Thursday ‘This is the evening of the Last Supper’, my service booklet read. It explained that on his last evening with his disciples, Jesus instituted the Eucharist and commanded his disciples to wash one another’s feet (Maundy), after which they headed to a garden, where the disciples watched as Jesus prayed. There had been a certain amount of anticipation of this service. I had spoken about it with four separate people who worship at the Cathedral and all had said the same thing to me: ‘It’s the only time of the year that you get to see the altar without anything over it. You never see it otherwise.’ One person had even mentioned a section of the service called ‘the Judas Cup’, a rite unique to Durham that had been performed by the monks of Durham Cathedral every Maundy Thursday and was mentioned in the sixteenthcentury manuscript the Rites of Durham (1998 [1593]). The rite of the Judas Cup had only recently been revived and reinserted into the service, having been inspired by the ancient manuscript in which the act is mentioned. It was made clear to me by various members of the community that this service was an important part of worship at Durham Cathedral and must not be missed. The service began with a hymn that opened with the line, ‘O thou, who at thy Eucharist didst pray’. It then moved on to the gathering for Prayers of Penitence. The members of the choir were in particularly good form this evening, their rich voices rising up like incense. The first reading was Exodus  12:1–4, 11–14 and related to God’s message to Moses and Aaron regarding Passover – the Jewish festival celebrated at this time of year – and how they should protect themselves from ‘the Passover of the Lord’: ‘This day shall be a day of remembrance for you. You shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord; throughout your generations you shall observe it as a perpetual ordinance.’ The second reading, John 13. 1–17, 31b–35, began with Jesus’s knowledge, before the Feast of the Passover, that his time on earth was short and that he would ultimately be betrayed by Judas. The reading then went on to describe Jesus washing his disciples’ feet during the Last Supper, then removing his outer robe and tying a towel around himself. After the readings, the sermon was given by the Bishop of Durham, who concluded his thoughts from his addresses throughout Holy Week. The

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service then entered a section called ‘The Middle Voluntary’, during which the bishop re-enacted the second reading by taking off his outer robe, tying a towel around himself and washing the feet of a select few choir boys sitting in a row in front of the quire stalls. When the washing of the feet had come to an end, the bishop again read the part of the second reading in which Jesus says, ‘Do you know what I have done to you?’, before concluding with a prayer. Having moved through the ‘Prayers of Intercession’ and into ‘The Liturgy of the Sacrament’, the preparation of the table began and, after a liturgy describing the Eucharist’s origins, the service arrived at the Eucharist itself. Once everybody had taken bread and wine and returned to their seats, the service moved on to the rite of ‘The Judas Cup’, the introduction to which I, not having been confirmed, had read whilst people were taking communion. The text detailed the ambiguities of discipleship and how these ambiguities came to be evoked in the ceremony called ‘The Judas Cup’. It was described as a ‘dramatic re-enactment’ and an attempt to ‘translate that ritual into modern terms’. The table of the Last Supper was an oak sculpture that, when folded up, depicted items that may have been found upon the table, such as bowls and a wine vase. When unfolded it became a flat table with an exquisite inlay design. The table spent most of its time in a corner of the Galilee Chapel, but it was opened in the centre of the quire for the Judas Cup ceremony. After the choir’s haunting chanting of Psalm 54, a psalm of betrayal, the Dean, leading the bishop and clergy to the table, relayed the words of Jesus as He sat at the table. After these lines were read, the ceremony became a full re-enactment of a segment of the Last Supper. Playing the role of Jesus, the Dean poured wine into a mazer and said, ‘Alas for that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed’, in response to which the members of the clergy, each playing a disciple, asked, ‘Lord, is it I?’ The Dean then drank from the mazer and passed it around the table for the others to drink. As the performance continued, the disciples proclaimed, ‘Even if I have to die with you, I will never disown you’. When the Dean announced, ‘It was night’, the lights of the Cathedral were lowered. Within the darkness of the Cathedral, the Stripping of the Altar began. The Chapter removed the altar clothes, banners and hangings, amongst other things. As they moved in silence through the darkened quire, the choir’s lamentation filled the dense air. The long shadows in the nave seemed to bring the focus down to the quire, which, as the ringing lamentation ended, was left bare. With the Stripping of the Altar concluded, the clergy left the quire and processed to the Galilee Chapel in silence, followed by the choir and congregation. I, too, made the journey to the west end of the Cathedral and passed through the large double doors into the Galilee Chapel. The atmosphere was

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heavy and the place was completely dark, save for the light of a few candles behind an altar screen on the central altar in front of what had been the great west doors. Out of the silence, the bishop began to read from the final page of the service booklet: ‘They went to a place called Gethsemane; and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.”’ In the chapel, his voice did not echo as it had in the main Cathedral. It sounded small, dry and distilled. The bishop continued to read through Jesus’s distress and praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, finishing with the sentence, ‘Get up, let us be going. See, my betrayer is at hand’, after which we were left in silence. In this silence, the glowing light from the candles that were hidden from view gave the impression that light was emanating from over the brow of a hill. All around me stood darkened figures, some sitting, some standing. At the front of the crowd that had silently gathered around the central altar, I could make out the tall frame of the Dean, his head bowed. He took a step back and sat in the first pew. The silent figures around me looked intently towards the light. Some sat in the pews that had been rearranged to face the central altar, while others sat on the floor. Standing at the very back of the crowd, I sat on a small ledge jutting out from the wall at a perfect sitting height. As the minutes went by, my ears became more aware of the howling of the wind finding its way through small cracks in the windows and I appreciated the protection offered in the serenity of the Galilee Chapel’s atmosphere. Sitting silently, my mind was drawn to the nave, just on the other side of the three doors, though it felt as though it were a world away from the Galilee Chapel.

Sacred Time Although my focus has been on the everyday playing out of the fortnightly calendar rather than the more abstract nature of sacred time, it is important at this point to turn more directly to this aspect of time in services at Durham Cathedral. According to Eliade, the sacred exists outside of time, as an attempt to refute ‘the definitive character of historical event’ in a bid ‘to return to a primeval state of being: the myth of the eternal return’ (Brandon 1965: 66). The eternal return is, in part, the cyclical nature that we ‘apply’ to linear time: the same dates with the same qualitatively distinct time coming around again and again. Indeed, that which is seen as most sacred in religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism and Catholicism relates to human salvation and is almost always situated outside of time. As an example of this, dogma in Catholicism comprises ‘timeless truths’, whereby the Eucharist ‘is not simply a reproduction or a representation of Christ’s Crucifixion on Calvary but is co-temporal with that original sacrifice’ (Stirrat 1984: 202).

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Similarly, while Eliade’s concept of the sacred is outside of time and thus denies time in whatever form it may take, be it lineal or cyclical, so too does it deny space (ibid.: 203). Therefore, just as the Eucharist and the Crucifixion are co-temporal, happening at the very time at which the original sacrifice occurred, so too are they co-spatial, happening at the site of the original sacrifice, Golgotha. Thus, the sacred is not only outside of time, but also outside of space, creating a time and space separate from the time and space in which we live. Eliade alludes to the idea of co-spatiality when discussing cathedrals as symbolically reproducing ‘the Celestial Jerusalem’ (1971 [1954]: 17). This theory is not lost on Mary W. Helms, who suggests that the claustral buildings of the medieval monastery were also given the qualitative values ‘necessary to define the monastery as a whole as a definitive ideological centre and a focal point in the broader territory beyond its walls’ (2002: 436). Helms argues that the repetitive nature of monastic life drove the belief ‘of ritual reputation by which hierophonies’ or manifestations of the sacred are maintained in these ideological centres (ibid.: 441). Note the similarity here between this distinction of a sacred space-time maintained in an ideological centre that serves as a focal point in the broader territory (ibid.: 436) and the discussion of the Cathedral maintaining religion on behalf of the wider society in chapter 2. Consequently, events such as Sunday processions express the basic belief that ‘in religion, as in magic, the periodic recurrence of anything signifies primarily that a mythical time is made present and then used indefinitely’ (Eliade 1958: 392, emphasis in the original). As an example of this, during the Stripping of the Altar service on Maundy Thursday, as I sat in the silence of the dark Galilee Chapel, my mind was drawn to the nave on the other side of the chapel doors, which felt like it was a world away. ‘This is the evening of the Last Supper.’ This was the evening of the Last Supper, the washing of the feet, the Eucharist, the walking to a garden, the watching and the praying. In line with Eliade’s ideas of co-spatiality and co-temporality with the original event, I had not sat and watched a re-enactment of the Last Supper; rather, I, along with the congregation and clergy, was co-spatially and co-temporally present at the Last Supper. I had seen the washing of the feet; I had seen the disciples drink from the same cup as they asked who the betrayer would be; I had walked not to the Galilee Chapel at the west end of Durham Cathedral, but into the Garden of Gethsemane, and had sat with Jesus’s disciples, waiting as he prayed just out of view over the brow of the hill. The final actions of the Stripping of the Altar in the quire also became clear. The dark, deserted and bare quire, the very soul of the Cathedral’s religious worship, symbolized what was to become of Jesus in the next few hours, after leaving the Garden of Gethsemane. He would find Himself abandoned and destitute.

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It should be noted here that the rite of the Judas Cup played a dual role in the service. Whilst it was both co-spatial and co-temporal with the Last Supper, my service booklet distinctly described it as a ‘dramatic re-­enactment’ of another time, stating that ‘in the Medieval monastery at Durham these ambiguities [of discipleship] were recalled in a ceremony called the Judas Cup’. The service booklet goes on to suggest that the dramatic re-enactment is ‘an attempt to translate that ritual into modern times as a way of reminding us of the necessity for humility as we recall the ambiguities of our own discipleship’. In a conversation with Canon Brown about the Judas Cup ceremony, she explained that it took its direction from the Rites of Durham. The manuscript itself says little of the ceremony, instead describing the Judas Cup and explaining that the rite took place in the Frater House, the Monks’ Refectory, known today as the Refectory Library. This part of the service is therefore important in two ways: firstly, the co-spatial and co-temporal aspect, implied through the ceremony’s location in the narrative of the service, immediately after the giving of communion to the congregation. It also connects to the monks of Durham Cathedral Priory and their own unique way of entering into the co-spatial and co-temporal sacrality of the service. For the monks, the location would have been hugely significant; by conducting the ceremony within the refectory as opposed to the quire, they were emphasizing its co-spatiality. The location of the refectory is no accident: it is a large upstairs room, like the one in which Jesus and his disciples ate their Last Supper together, as described in the Acts of the Apostles (20:8), and it was the place where the brotherhood continued to meet (Ferguson 1986: 174). In essence, each of the monks’ mealtimes was sacred, taking place not in the Frater House, but in the upstairs room of the Last Supper. As the vigil in the Galilee Chapel came to an end, time and space seemed to return to normal, with the congregation leaving the Cathedral in silence through the North Door and heading out into the night.

Good Friday Upon reaching the roped-off area of the nave, I stopped behind a disgruntled tourist who was annoyed that she could not wander around the Cathedral: ‘It’s a bank holiday. I can’t believe we can’t have a look around.’ After telling the woman that the nave was reserved for worshippers, the steward turned to me and asked with a smile, ‘Here for the service, dear?’ I smiled and nodded. I was handed the service booklet, entitled ‘The Three Hours’, and I entered the nave. The introduction to the service read that the Cross is central to Good Friday.

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As the service began, I again found that we were continuing through the final hours of Jesus’s life. The readings from the Old Testament foretold the life of Jesus. Psalm 22.1–21, a psalm of pain, suffering and abandonment as Jesus hung helplessly on the cross, was exquisitely chanted by the choir. A hymn was sung and the congregation was taken through the Passion according to John. After a solemn address and prayers, the same themes of pain, suffering and abandonment were taken up again. A large wooden cross was then carried through the congregation and placed in the crossing of the transept. As the first hour finished, I stayed sitting where I was. People continued to pray, staring at the cross that stood alone in the crossing of the transept as they waited for the second hour: a commemoration of the Passion of Jesus Christ, beginning at 2 pm. The second hour began: ‘Beloved, we come together on this day and at this hour to commemorate the passion of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that as we behold its terror and its shame, so we may be made partakers of its grace and glory.’ In this part of the service, the congregation was again taken through the Passion. Beginning at the Priests’ Plot and the Anointing and ending with the Crucifixion, each section was separated by a piece of music: a hymn, an anthem or an organ solo. At the end of the hour, the clergy and choir departed in silence, again leaving the congregation to their thoughts. The third and final hour was held in the Chapel of the Nine Altars, around a modern driftwood sculpture depicting Mary looking down at her broken child laid out on the floor, painful anguish etched in her face. In this final hour, the congregation standing around the sculpture, around the body of Jesus, which had been lowered from the cross. My mind travelled back to the Last Supper, the washing of the feet, the Judas Cup, the Stripping of the Altar, the procession to the Galilee Chapel and the Garden of Gethsemane, and observing the three final hours of Jesus’s ordeal as he hung on the cross that stood in the crossing of the transept. Now we were gathered around his broken body. It felt longer in time than reality. Through the services of the Stripping of the Altar of Maundy Thursday and ‘The Three Hours’ of Good Friday, I and the rest of the congregation had lived through the experience of Jesus’s final hours in real time, in the sense that we were not ‘watching’ the happenings as if on television; the actual time of the service and the Biblical time merged. It was as though the words of the Bible had mixed with our own space-time, creating a space-time that was co-temporal and co-spatial with the original event. These services had been mentally draining and, as a non-religious person, I could only imagine how the experience of living through the events had been for ‘true believers’ . In this ‘sacred time’, the movements and protestations of those on the other side of the red velvet rope were lost and one was no longer aware of them as they went about their own daily actions in a limited area

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of the Cathedral. The two space-times, despite only being separated by the stewards and a red velvet rope, felt as though they were worlds apart.

Bringing Together Time In concluding this chapter, I turn to Bergson’s concept of ‘duration’ or ‘la durée’, whereby there is only one time. This may seem to be in contrast with what I have suggested in this chapter through the emerging multiples of space-time suggested by Munn (1992) and Eliade’s concept of sacred time. However, I have sought to show how multiple structures of time can and do coexist within Durham Cathedral, with these various spatiotemporal structures emerging through the actions of the community. Further exploration of la durée will show how it makes space for an experiential time in which spatiotemporal structures can coexist. In Eliade’s The Myth of the Eternal Return, Or, Cosmos and History, he makes a distinction between religious and non-religious peoples based on their perceptions of time: religious people view time as heterogeneous while non-religious people view time as homogeneous (1971 [1954]). Bryan S. Rennie points out that this division of time ‘seems to derive, directly or indirectly’ (1996: 42) from the analysis of the division of time put forward by Bergson in Time and Free Will, in which there are ‘two possible conceptions of time, one free from all alloy, the other surreptitiously bringing in the idea of space’ (2001 [1913]: 100). Bergson adapted this distinction from physicist and mathematician G.B.R. Riemann’s theories about ‘quantitative, or discrete, and qualitative, or continuous, multiplicities’. Whereas quantitative multiplicities are naturally numerical, taking the ‘form of the one and the many’, the differences between these multiplicities are ‘homogeneous differences of degree’ and therefore their dividing does not cause any changes in kind (quality). However, qualitative multiplicities create heterogeneous differences when divided: ‘They comprise an interrelated (i.e. relational) infinite whole, where any multiple is fused with all other multiples, and any one cannot either be isolated or change without all others changing’ (Hodges 2008: 409). As Gilles Deleuze argues, the multiplicity is ‘of difference in kind  . . . that cannot be reduced to numbers’ (1991: 38, emphasis in the original). According to Elizabeth Grosz: [La durée] functions simultaneously as singular, unified, and whole, as well as in specific fragments and multiplicitous proliferation. There is one and only one time, but there are also numerous times: a duration for each thing or movement, which melds with a global or collective time. As a whole, time is braided, intertwined, a unity of strands layered over each other; unique,

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s­ingular, and individual, it nevertheless partakes of a more generic and overarching time, which makes possible relations of earlier and later. (1999: 17)

This recalls Alfred Gell’s much-quoted line, ‘there is no fairyland where people experience time in a way that is markedly unlike the way in which we do ourselves’ (1992: 315). However, through la durée and the understanding of time as a singular, unified whole, it becomes apparent that the multiple space-times suggested by Munn (1992) emerge within la durée. Similarly, whilst sacred time can be understood as a ‘mythical time, that is a primordial time, not to be found in the historical past’ (Eliade 1959: 72), by understanding sacred time in relation to la durée, or more precisely the manner in which sacred time is arrived at, the two become coherent. As Rennie states, ‘Obviously the “primordial time” is not located in any long-gone historical era of our known world but is notional, conceptual or imaginary’ (1996: 79). Whilst Eliade thought that humans felt a ‘nostalgia for the lost paradise’ (1971[1954]: 91), the object of this nostalgia is not an actual past that exists in a ‘chronological past’, but an ideal that ‘functions as an exemplar’ (Rennie 1996: 79). Access to this alternative structure of time can be gained through the performance of religious observances such as those detailed above, which involve repeating or imitating an archetype, a divine or mythical model. The action becomes co-temporal with the original model on which the repetition is based, for example, the Eucharist is not a reproduction ‘but is cotemporal with that original sacrifice’ (Stirrat 1984: 202). Through the performance of the Eucharist, the actors enter into the sacred time created by their actions. In the case of the washing of the feet on Maundy Thursday, the act facilitated transcendence into sacred time for those present as it created a sacred spacetime that was concurrent with its original exemplar. Furthermore, whilst the ‘Three Hours’ services on Good Friday created a sacred space-time, additional times were still able to emerge alongside that sacred space-time, such as that of the tourists behind the rope during the services. As I stated in the ethnography, the movements and protestations of those on the other side of the red velvet rope did not enter this sacred spacetime and I was no longer aware of them as they went about their own daily actions in a limited space of the Cathedral. The two space-times, although they were only separated by the stewards and a red velvet rope, felt like they were worlds apart. Over the course of this chapter and my ethnographic accounts of time in Durham Cathedral, one stand-out feature has been the way in which multiple structures of time coexist in the Cathedral and how the community negotiates these multiple space-times, from the layers of the fortnightly calendars containing information about the multiple rhythms of various cycles

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and the tensions involved in negotiating collisions to the way in which space and time can be made in the Cathedral to accommodate the needs of individuals and groups alike. The result of these various, continuous and often imperceptible negotiations is a building that is used in different ways by its busy and vibrant community; Durham Cathedral can be whatever you want it to be because space is provided for more than just worship. In the words of the Dean, Michael Sadgrove: It’s a workshop, it’s an aircraft hangar from which machines start flying, it’s a laboratory where things can be tried out and tested. It’s a concert hall, it’s an arts centre, it’s a temple. I could go on and on. It’s a place that brings people together, so it’s somewhere that things really creative can happen.

Part III

The Living Cathedral

Chapter 7

Building

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Introduction Over the course of this book, I have argued that in order to understand life in Durham Cathedral, one has to understand the relationship between the building and the community, and the agentive role of the building in daily life. Many conversations that I had during my fieldwork centred on the building itself, and while it may seem like an obvious point, it is important to highlight that the stones, bricks and mortar of Durham Cathedral are ever-present in daily life and not simply a backdrop against which life occurs. Often, the conversations I had involved reflection on the building process and the people who built Durham Cathedral. For example, one steward, with whom I was sitting at the back of the nave looking down its length, said the following: This place didn’t just happen. Someone had the vision that they knew what they wanted it to end up looking like. Somebody worked out that if you’re going to have a nave this high and this wide and you’re going to have a stone roof to it, you’ve got to have sufficient space at each side to carry the weight of that.

It is only upon looking up that you really get a sense of how experimental the architecture of Durham Cathedral is. The pointed transverse arches are some of the earliest surviving examples (Jackson 1993). Similarly, the ceiling

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is the earliest known example of stone ribbed vaulting (James 1983), a huge step forward in architecture, aiding the transference of weight down towards the walls, allowing for ever greater height and drawing the eye up towards the heavens. This experimental ceiling is supported by massive drum columns, 27 ft high and 7 ft in diameter, each carved with a different design. These drum columns alternate with more robust composite columns that stretch up to the pointed transverse arches. Finally, hidden away in the upper levels are lateral abutments, precursors to the flying buttresses found in later Gothic architecture, highlighting that although the architecture of the building is Romanesque, the Cathedral was in the vanguard of eleventh- and twelfthcentury techniques as the master masons pushed the boundaries of cathedral building. Having participated in many conversations about the construction of Durham Cathedral, it was easy to forget that the building was constructed by real people and assumed its current form in a cumulative manner, through changing styles, political outlooks, structural knowledge and modes of living. Volunteering as a steward one Sunday afternoon, I began to consider the deeper connections that are revealed through the stone of the Cathedral, leading back to the human hands that erected the building over nine hundred years ago. John, my stewarding team leader, had called me over and told me to take a break. ‘But you’ll need to go to the crypt’, he said, ‘it’s opposite where the choir gets changed because the restaurant is closed for the refurbishment.’ Leaving the nave, I made my way around the cloister, towards the far corner, down a couple of steps and into a dark space with a low vaulted ceiling. A small table had been set up in the corner with a hot water container, some paper cups, an assortment of teabags and a tray of biscuits. I had never been in this room and took the opportunity to explore the space. Chairs had been arranged in a circle for busy break times, but today I was alone. Moving aside some of the chairs, I pulled back a black sheet that closed off the rest of the crypt and stepped through to the other side. Set out on the floor were numerous pieces of stonework that had been taken down and were being stored in this small space. There were large corner sections and right angles of walls, as well as small crockets used to decorate the sloping pinnacles of the building. I found out later that some of these stones came from the earliest parts of the building and were kept because they offered a valuable insight into carving techniques in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as well as showing the erosion that has occurred over the intervening nine hundred years. In the moment, however, as I inspected the stones, I was able to appreciate the human hands that had shaped them. I instinctively and cautiously looked back at the curtain, feeling as though I had passed into the history of the Cathedral. I was able to closely examine the back parts of the stones, which were free from erosion and looking largely as they would have when

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Figure 7.1.  Medieval stonework stored in the crypt. © Arran J. Calvert.

the mason, risking his life high up on some rickety scaffolding, first slipped them into the position they would stay in for over nine centuries. I ran my fingers over the marks left by the tools of the mason who had carved the stone and his mason mark, unique to each mason, to ensure that he would be paid for carving this stone so that he might feed himself and his family. In this close proximity, I was brought into contact with the presentness of history, though I felt frustratingly incapable of fully reading the history held within these lithic artefacts. I felt the wonderment of touching the marks that had been left behind, connected to the person whose ‘mindful activity is disclosed in the form’ (Harries 2017: 112). It was a personal encounter across a vast expanse of time. As Matt Edgeworth points out, the experience of such objects ‘seems to bring us close to the everyday rhythms and routines of everyday life in a former age’ (2012: 81). These stones, which were carved so mindfully by the masons, also become intrusions from a ‘pre-textual past . . . durable signifiers of vanished community, nonlinguistic messages replete with possibility’ (Cohen 2015: 91). In such encounters, narratives arise that have the potential to sensuously connect us with moments we might otherwise never consider. Similarly, the interrelationships that exist between the body, space and matter become tangible as contact with the stones ‘act[s] as a mnemonic trigger for stories and personal biographies’ (Tilley 2004: 26). Again,

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the consideration of lithic artefacts in such encounters has the potential to lead us back to mundane moments in the distant past. Aside from the tantalizing lithic allusions in tool marks and mason marks that can be found around the Cathedral, almost nothing is known of the building of Durham Cathedral. Its construction has always been a source of intrigue. In a lecture given in the Cathedral in 1879, Canon William Greenwell discussed the act of cathedral building as a ‘living and growing science’ (1889: 30). More recently, an engineering conference in 1993, held to celebrate nine hundred years since the laying of the foundation stone, led to the publication of an edited volume, Engineering a Cathedral (Jackson 1993). And, in 2016, Michael J. Jackson, a retired priest, Canon of the Cathedral and former civil engineer, wrote an article with a volunteer steward and retired geologist outlining how, from the perspective of a geologist and civil engineer, the construction process may have looked, although, as they point out, the article is ‘highly conjectural’ (Jackson and Young 2016: 36). During my volunteering shifts, questions like ‘Who was the architect?’ and ‘How was this place built?’ were common. Such questions are difficult to answer, particularly since no plans or architectural drawings from the initial building process have survived. Only a few tantalizing comments are recorded in contemporary writings from Symeon of Durham, who was a monk at the monastery when the Cathedral was being constructed. However, as David Turnbull argues, the existence of plans and the role they may have played in medieval cathedral building ‘is extremely controversial’ (1993: 334). Using the Gothic cathedral of Chartres in France as an example, Turnbull argues that the existence of plans ‘is too strong a requirement’ (ibid.: 320). Architectural historian Francis B. Andrews (1974) has similarly discussed how the idea of plans, as we might understand them today, were much more ‘alive’ in medieval building projects, with the final outcome of a building being the result of many people with different needs coming together. As such, in order to understand cathedral building in medieval Europe, we must see it as ‘the ad hoc accumulation of the work of many’ (Turnbull 1993: 315). In approaching the process as an ad hoc accumulation, Turnbull (1993) suggests that we should view medieval cathedral building in much the same way as one would view a modern laboratory. In a laboratory setting, numerous teams of people work freely upon their own tasks, which have been delegated to them by one or more research leaders. Whilst these teams are working towards the same common goal, none are sure of how they will reach it, though the process depends on the sharing of information and the subsequent actions of the self-determining teams. In due course, then, when all of the data has been gathered together from the various teams, a coherent building emerges, developed separately but resulting in a coherent unit. The final result is not the achievement of one person delegating tasks but rather

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an amalgamation of parts coming together, ‘imperfectly integrated . . . and patched together thanks to communicative exchanges between them’ (Ingold 2013: 88). In this way, viewing cathedral building sites as laboratories of experimentation highlights how ‘the local, the tacit, and the messy knowledge and practices of groups of practitioners are transformed through the collective work into a coherent tradition’ (Turnbull 1993: 321). One key tool in a successful and coherent cathedral building laboratory is ‘manipulable systems’ (ibid.: 316) in the form of templates. A stencil or pattern to be overlaid on stone or made from wood would allow the stonemasons to cut the stones into the same shapes repeatedly. The key strength of the template is not just that it allows a large number of workers to work from the same precise design but also that ‘simple geometric rules of thumb will often suffice for the template itself to be accurately reproduced as often as required’ (ibid.: 322). Consequently, the ability of individual masons was of less importance as they simply had to follow a template that had been given to them by the master mason. This allowed masons, possibly working off-site at the quarry, to work with a level of autonomy, whilst control and co-ordination was maintained across multiple sites. As a result, a number of stones of a particular design could be ordered from the quarry, to be sent to the building site without surplus stone having to be moved, keeping the building site relatively clear. In Durham Cathedral, the use of alternating patterned drum columns, ornamented with fluting, chevron, diamond and spiral patterns, highlights the use of templates. Indeed, one point of interest for the cathedral tour guides is the Apprentice Column that stands in the south transept. Assembled incorrectly, the Apprentice Column serves as a perfect illustration of how these stones would have been put together, one pre-shaped stone at a time.

Building a LEGO Cathedral In building, there are important similarities that can be drawn between different practices, whether these be medieval practices or modern ‘technoscientific practice[s]’. One key element of the building process is that ‘both science and technology, now and in the past, are the product of local and tacit knowledge’ (Turnbull 1993: 317). That is to say that solutions to many building issues can be found in the activity itself, through a process of using experience acquired and improvising. Indeed, this is a process that I was able to observe in the construction of the LEGO Cathedral. When finished, the LEGO Cathedral would stand at 5 ft 6 in high, 12 ft 6 in long, 5 ft wide and would comprise close to three hundred thousand LEGO bricks. Constructed in the undercroft, between the shop and

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Figure 7.2.  The Apprentice Column, a source of much discussion in Durham Cathedral. Is the change in the chevron pattern a third of the way up on the left-hand side intentional, to show that only God is perfect, as some believe, or is it an example of ad hoc building similar to that seen in the LEGO Cathedral? © Arran J. Calvert.

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restaurant, the goal was to raise £300,000 by asking the public to donate £1 for each LEGO brick they placed on the model, guided by a volunteer LEGO builder. As I was keen to engage in as many areas of the community as possible, I was immediately set to work as a volunteer LEGO builder. The LEGO Cathedral had been designed using computer-generated plans created by a company that specializes in large-scale LEGO models. This would mark the first time that the company had created plans for a model that they would not build themselves. Due to the size of the building project, the model was broken down into separate modules. One set of plans were used for several modules of the same design. For example, all drum columns in the nave had one set of plans, as did all wall sections of the same design. As the plans did not include an overall design or drawing of the entire Cathedral, they acted much more like a template for building modules than a useful plan or design once the building process moved beyond the initial construction of the individual modules. Furthermore, the templates did not guarantee that the modules would fit together in practice and, as I will show, the act of putting the modules together was experimental and required creative improvisation and ad hoc adjustments, thereby constituting a laboratory through these experiments of building. As the build began, volunteers were understandably nervous about building, particularly during busy periods, and the process could become quite stressful. A common problem during the early building phase was missing pieces. Whenever a particular piece was missing, the volunteers would get anxious and begin trawling through boxes looking for the correct piece and, at times, would even stop building the particular module until the correct piece was found, laying floor tiles instead. In the first few months of the build, it was felt that every brick needed to be correct because all of the bricks had been decided on and dictated by the ‘Master LEGO builder’ who had created the plans. However, as the builders gained experience, this began to change. A notable shift occurred during the Lumiere festival, during which there were illuminated art installations around the city, with Durham Cathedral playing host to a number of different installations. Due to the high number of visitors expected in the Cathedral, visitors were guided through the building. After watching a projection show on Palace Green, visitors queued up, entered through the North Door and went straight into the Galilee Chapel. They were guided into the nave, then out through the Monks’ Door at the east end of the nave. From there, they went through the cloister and made their exit through the undercroft, where the volunteer LEGO builders were waiting with purple buckets to take donations. A system had been put in place to help cope with building demands. Three volunteers were standing with buckets for donations and would write out a ticket with the donation

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amount, whilst three other volunteers sat at a table in front of the shop, building separate modules, all three of which were columns for the nave. The number of visitors during the festival was higher than expected. The LEGO Cathedral proved to be extremely popular with adults and children alike, and the volunteers were kept remarkably busy throughout. As a result of the long queues of people waiting to help build the modules, a change in the use of the plans started to emerge. At the start of each night, the builders would familiarize themselves with both the partially built modules and the plans, establishing how far through the plans they were and acquainting themselves with the next few steps of the plan. However, as it grew busier, their (and my own) intense study of the plans became more occasional glances to make sure that the plan was on the correct page in case members of the public wanted to see it or something went wrong with the build and a study of the plan was necessary. At the end of one shift, a volunteer turned to me and said, ‘You know, I’ve not looked at my plan once tonight’ – I realized this was also true of myself. The building of columns was, by that point, a simple procedure and, as a result of the experience gained through building other columns, the plans became less important. This was in marked contrast to the first few months of continual intense study of the plans. It was also a significant step considering the crucial role the plans had played at the beginning of the build, when they were followed precisely. That is not to say, however, that the columns were perfectly built without the plans. Indeed, it was commented on more than once that, ‘It’s not perfect, but it’s going . . .’. This reduced concern about the exactness of the modules was not universal amongst volunteers, though when pushed to build quickly due to high numbers of people wanting bricks, those volunteers with more experience building the modules chose to rely less on the templates. While templates in the building of modules for the LEGO Cathedral were useful for learning the basic process of constructing a column, improvisation soon became a key element of the building process, particularly once volunteers had established a certain level of experience and understanding. This developed further when the separate modules, each built from the same template, had to be installed side by side on the main model. Although the models had been constructed using the same template, they did not always fit together. In such instances, the templates offered no solution as they proved too rigid and did not fit with the fluidity of the building process. As Stewart Brand argues, there is a tension between the crystalline idea and fluid fact (1994: 2). According to Brand, this is because there exists a ‘kink’ ‘between the world and our idea of the world’ (ibid.). In building, this kink exists between the architect’s drawing of a building and the final outcome. In attempting to

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rectify the tension between the rigidity of the architect’s drawing – in the case of the LEGO Cathedral, the computer-generated module plan/template  – and the final outcome in which modules do not fit alongside one another easily, the builders ‘in practice if not in principle, inhabit this kink’ (Ingold 2013: 74). The reason for this is that builders are building in a dynamic environment in which everything is constantly changing and things rarely go to plan. Because of this, and because rigid plans such as the architect’s drawing, the LEGO module templates or even medieval templates offer no fluidity in resolving or meeting this changing environment, the builders must continuously ‘work it out’ as issues arise; in short, they must continuously improvise. For the LEGO builders during the Lumiere festival, who often did not have the correct pieces available to them and were under pressure as a result of the amount of people who wanted bricks, the level of improvisation increased as the building process unfolded in an environment in which many changes and unforeseen issues arose. The LEGO builders, inhabiting this kink, were required to improvise solutions that were not provided by the rigid plans or templates. In inhabiting this kink, experience and skill become important. Builders working on a project inevitably come to the task with experience, working with templates and using their experience to improvise solutions when necessary. At the start of the build, volunteers were often reticent to depart from templates and kept a close eye on them as they built. However, as they began to build their experience of working with LEGO and the plans/templates, they became more comfortable straying from the templates, using their experience to improvise their way around unforeseen issues. These improvisations began in small ways, such as by replacing missing bricks with similarly shaped bricks. However, during the Lumiere festival, when the working environment was more pressurized, the builders were forced to move quickly through the modules, meaning that they could not closely study the plans. As a result, the previously gained experience allowed them to improvise in ways that allowed the building of the modules to continue. Those who lacked experience of building were more unwilling to improvise and thus chose not to build, whilst others revisited their improvisations during quieter periods to scrutinize the changes and, at times, alter the improvisations to adhere to the template. As the LEGO build highlights, improvisation exists even when meticulous plans are drawn. Ian J. Ewart (2013: 85–99) also highlights this in his description of the building of two bridges by the Kelabit people in Borneo. When building a modern bridge, a concept of the bridge is drawn up and its plan is the subject of much discussion. However, the Kelabit men are experienced in building houses and have an ability to improvise with whatever materials they have at hand in the forest. The building of a

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traditional-style suspension bridge with relatively modern materials began with a design that one of the men had drawn up. But soon the drawing ‘was left crumpled and ignored as the group began to see how components and materials could be used and what problems needed to be resolved’ (ibid.: 92). In the case of the Kelabit suspension bridge, it is clear that having a plan does not always imply that the plan will be useful at all points or indeed followed. The changing environment requires that the men work on an ad hoc basis with the materials and components available, fitting them together through the negotiation of their experience of building houses and the practical differences between that experience and bridge building. The experience accumulated through building houses provided the builders with knowledge of the materials, endowing them with the ability and the confidence to see beyond the plans and adapt to the environment in which they were building. Similarly, during Lumiere, the LEGO builders applied their previous knowledge of building the modules to the circumstances and pressures they faced (i.e. in relation to the pace at which they needed to build). The kink described by both Brand and Ingold exists because of the uncertainty of the environment, unforeseen situations and other challenges that may arise during a building process. At such moments, when plans, drawings or templates reach the limits of their guiding ability, the builders must use their improvisational skills in order to bridge the gap. No matter how detailed the plan is, the nature of a continuously changing environment means that improvisation remains a key element of building. This is not the result of any uncertainties in relation to the provided plans; rather, it is the result of the uncertainty of the environment, the dynamically shifting relationality between things and being in which the plan is brought to fruition. Returning to Turnbull’s point that the existence of plans in medieval cathedral building is ‘too strong a requirement’ (1993: 320) and that we should instead consider the process as ‘the ad hoc accumulation of the work of many’ (ibid.: 315), the activities of the LEGO builders make it clear that an ad hoc accumulation is an integral part of any building process. This is particularly so when, as was the case with Durham Cathedral, builders are at the forefront of engineering knowledge and building sites become laboratories of experimentation that utilize ‘the local, the tacit, and the messy knowledge and practices of groups of practitioners’ (ibid.: 321). A perfect example of this would be the parallelogram of forces, a mathematical equation used to understand the pressure of two forces on a single object. This equation is critical to knowing how large a stone vaulted ceiling’s keystone would need to be. However, the equation was not conceptualized until the end of the sixteenth century (Heyman 1966: 249). Yet, according to the writings of Symeon of Durham, the quire, along with its stone vaulting,

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was completed and occupied by 1104, almost five hundred years before the mathematical understanding of the complex forces involved was articulated. Any building process, therefore, can only have been a careful step-by-step negotiation in which experience of the materials was engaged to overcome difficulties encountered.

Cathedral within a Cathedral In the weeks following Lumiere, the Cathedral was quiet. During my volunteering shifts at the LEGO Cathedral, I would often sit with Les, a retired civil servant who also volunteered as a LEGO builder, and discuss the progress of the build. Within the community of LEGO builders, Les had assumed a key role in the organization and execution of the build process. As there was no overall plan of the model build itself, the decision of which module to build next often depended on which bricks we had and which module templates were available from the company designers. At times, the build was only a busy weekend away from reaching the end of the available module plans. In those quiet weeks, Les began to talk about the form the LEGO Cathedral was taking, its resemblance to the actual Cathedral and the differences between the plans and the building. Soon a conversation developed amongst the LEGO build volunteers, who quickly took action, altering the model to better reflect the Cathedral. The first item on their list of things to be changed was a small set of steps that runs the entire length of the eastern wall of the Chapel of the Nine Altars; it is on these steps that the nine altar tables stand. Having walked to the area in question, Les and Jules, another volunteer LEGO builder, returned with pictures of the steps and began to discuss how the changes might be made. Eventually, having verbally agreed on a course of action, they set about making the changes. The steps in the Nine Altars were an important addition to the chapel, being the place where the altars themselves stand. Although the steps were a deviation from the templates supplied by the company, Les’s rationalization was that they were installed in order to bring the LEGO Cathedral more into line with the Cathedral itself. The addition of the steps to the LEGO Cathedral was a marked improvement, with Jules commenting on the sense of scale they gave the chapel as a whole. The success of the steps also gave the volunteers confidence to implement other improvements to the pre-designed LEGO Cathedral, bringing it more into line with the actual Cathedral. ‘We also need to put in steps for the DLI Chapel and the verger’s office in the north transept and the same for the south transept’, Les said after the success of the steps in the Chapel of the Nine Altars.

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Figure 7.3.  Changes being made to the LEGO Cathedral. © Arran J. Calvert.

Whilst the addition of the steps and the subsequent changes made in the same spirit constitute a complete deviation from the plan, they are, in a sense, no deviation at all. Returning to the benefits of a template in an ad hoc building process, the key strength of the template is not just that it allows a large number of people to work from the same precise design ‘but also in the fact that simple geometric rules of thumb will often suffice for the template itself to be accurately reproduced as often as required’ (Turnbull 1993: 322). Rules of thumb inherently involve a level of vagueness that encourages creative improvisation, resulting in a building process that is not wholly reliant on ‘mathematical correctness or logical consistency’ (Ingold 2013: 81) but is, rather, based on finding the best possible solution to unforeseen issues. As such, the very benefit of working with rules of thumb is the vagueness they allow for. Examples of such rules of thumb that would have passed from master to apprentice, Turnbull suggests, include structural knowledge that would be expressed as ratios, for instance, ‘as the span gets larger, the depth of the joist will too’ (1993: 323). While the rules of thumb for the LEGO Cathedral were somewhat more fundamental than those of medieval craftsmen, they were no less important, for example, there were rules of thumb regarding brick replacements for missing shapes: three flat bricks equalled a

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standard depth brick, a 2x3 brick could replace two 1x3 bricks, and when building high modules the layers of bricks should be overlapped in order to increase stability. As the volunteers developed such rules of thumb through experience and the sharing of knowledge, their confidence increased and, as a result, replacements were more readily employed. Perhaps more importantly, the degree to which improvisations were experimented with and ultimately utilized increased. Therefore, without the simple rules of thumb involved in improvisation, it is unlikely the LEGO builders would ever have attempted more complex additions that had no templates. The idea of ad hoc building that relies upon creativity, improvisation and experience, which leads to rules of thumb, is clear in the context of the LEGO Cathedral and its builders. Having access only to templates for individual modules, for example, a section of nave wall (of which fourteen modules need to be built), rather than an overall plan of the LEGO Cathedral, led to a move away from the templates when issues arose and creative improvisation needed to be employed. In inhabiting the kink between plan and reality, improvisation was needed in two particular areas: firstly, to bring the model more into line with the actual Cathedral and secondly, to get the individual modules to fit together. Although several modules had the same plan, they often did not fit together well, not sitting at the same height or with spaces between the modules being too tight, which posed a problem when adding modules to the upper levels of the LEGO Cathedral. This kink, in which improvisation was needed to resolve the issues, became even more pronounced through the lack of plans when resolving the issues, as volunteers would lean on their experience of LEGO building, as well as taking their cue from the actual Cathedral. Of course, sometimes improvisation went wrong and required further improvisation to resolve, which ultimately had just as much potential for going wrong. Indeed, in an indulgence dated 1235 from Hugh of Northwold, the then Bishop of Ely commented that the earliest parts of the stone vaulted ceiling, above the tomb of St Cuthbert and the quire, were full of fissures and in imminent danger of falling just a century after the ceiling’s completion. The fact that the rest of the stone vaulting has remained in place for over nine hundred years is a testament to the learning and experience accumulated by the masons as they built, learnt and, as a result, made alterations and improvements to their methods. As Ewart suggests in relation to the Kelabit bridge building, ‘the constant need for adjustments was driven by a nuanced understanding of the potentials of materials and environment’ (2013: 95). This nuanced understanding emerges from experience. Additionally, like the designs for the building of the suspension bridge, the plans here acted more as a ‘resource rather than a blueprint for action (Suchman 1987), a point of departure rather than a final

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Figure 7.4.  The collapsed wall of the LEGO nave after changes were made. © Arran J. Calvert.

destination’ (Ewart 2013: 95). The more experienced the volunteer LEGO builders were, the less they relied on the plans; they could improvise, using the LEGO plans and the actual Cathedral as a point of departure. Once the modules were completed and added to the model, the modules continued to be built without the plan, now using the actual Cathedral as the basis for improvising changes to the individual modules and the LEGO Cathedral in general. Critically, because the volunteers regularly used the actual Cathedral as a reference, taking pictures and studying them closely before making any changes, the improvisation in the building of the modules and the LEGO Cathedral was the result of a dialogue between the plans for the modules, the LEGO Cathedral and the actual Cathedral, mediated by the LEGO builders’ increased expertise. This continuous dialogue brings the LEGO Cathedral and the actual Cathedral together in such a way that the former is not simply a Cathedral within a Cathedral; rather, it is the result of a conversation between the pre-designed LEGO plans and the Cathedral itself. The result of this conversation is realized through the improvisation and negotiation of the material and the environment by the volunteer LEGO builders inhabiting the kink,

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which lies between the ‘crystalline’ idea of the LEGO designer’s plan and the ever-changing reality in which we live. In short, the LEGO Cathedral is the embodiment of the knowledge, experience and negotiation skills learnt and then used by the LEGO builders, in much the same way as the Cathedral in which it stands is the embodiment of the knowledge, experience and negotiation skills of its builders. Just as the building of cathedrals should be seen ‘a series of full-scale experiments’ (Turnbull 1993: 321), the construction of the LEGO Cathedral also highlighted the ways in which local, tacit and messy knowledge comes together to inform building processes, as rigid plans and templates can only take a building so far. When faced with changes that are not foreseen by plans, builders are forced to tap into their accumulated knowledge in order to push the build onwards. In such situations, solutions often become experimental as builders push the boundaries of their knowledge. As Turnbull writes, ‘laboratories are not simply built by architects; they are constituted through the performance of experiments’ (ibid.). Returning to the steward’s view that ‘someone had the vision that they knew what they wanted it to end up looking like’, we can say that this may, in part, be true; however, as the construction of the LEGO Cathedral shows, it is much more likely that the execution of that vision was the ad hoc work of many coming together to share their knowledge in a series of experimental improvisations that were crucial once the limits of the plans and templates had been reached. Whilst the construction of cathedrals may involve a laboratory of building, as I will show in the next chapter, building never ceases; rather, it is the modes and methods of experimentation that shift, moving from construction to caring.

Chapter 8

Dwelling



Introduction ‘I’ve worked here for thirty-six years, and the first thing I want to say is that I love my job. You never know where you’re going to be from one day to the next.’ I was standing in the Chapel of the Nine Altars talking to Nigel, the Cathedral’s mason, who was busy carving the name of the new bishop, Paul Butler, into a marble slab that listed all of the Bishops of Durham since the first, Aldhun, in 995. I would often stop and chat to Nigel as he worked on different areas of the Cathedral and its many surrounding buildings. Usually, he was too busy to stop for long, but on this day, he took a few minutes to chat to me about his life working at Durham Cathedral: When I finished school, I went to the careers office, and they had this youth workers programme. It was basically cheap labour because there was no job at the end of it. They said, ‘There’s a job at the butcher’s or at the Cathedral.’ Well, I took the Cathedral. Anyway, they’d already taken on two lots of three, and it was a year June to June, and by the end of it, I was the only one they took on. After that, the Cathedral ran a summer programme for students, which ran from June to September, so I did that. Then I was on the dole for two weeks, then got taken on again. During my year, I’d shown interest, see. I’d been picking up bits of stone around the yard and learning about how to work stone, and when I started on here permanent, it was as a labourer, and after a while, one of the masons working here saw what I was doing and told the clerk of the works that I had potential. He called me into the office and said,

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‘We’re going to train you as a mason.’ It wasn’t an apprenticeship or anything. I didn’t do anything like that. The Clerk said, ‘Mind, we aren’t gonna send you to college or anything.’ The nearest places to train as a mason were, I think, Bath and Edinburgh. Well, they weren’t going to pay for that. So, they put me on this five-year thing, and my wage would go up in increments each year, but I finished it in three, so they put me on a full mason’s wage after three years.

Nigel leant forward to examine his work. He delicately knocked small chips of marble from the list of bishops, taking his pencil from behind his ear and adjusting his marks as he went, stepping back every couple of taps to observe his progress. ‘Did you carve any other names on here?’ I asked. ‘No, this is my first. I know the lad who did the previous ones. But if you look closely, you can see his hand in it. There’s a slight difference in our work. As you go up you can make out the different hands.’ He gently tapped away at the ‘B’ of the bishop’s surname and again stepped back. Nigel’s words remind me of my discovery of the stones in the crypt and the way in which they evoked the masons who carved their marks into the stones, each mark unique to that mason as a way of denoting their work so that they might be paid appropriately. The masons’ marks and skills have

Figure 8.1.  Nigel carving the latest in a long line of bishops. © Arran J. Calvert.

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Figure 8.2.  The long marble list has subsequently been extended in another ad hoc change to the building. © Arran J. Calvert.

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remained visible in the stone, but their names have been lost to history. I stood in silence, watching as Nigel made his marks, which I compared with the other marks above his, thinking about the mason who carved the names of the previous bishops, whose work will live in stone long after he has died. I took a moment to appreciate Nigel’s movements, with his hammer, chisel and pencil, as he worked on the marble slab. Perhaps his name will not be remembered, but his shaping of the building will endure as yet another testament to the ongoing-ness of life in Durham Cathedral. And just as the consideration of the stones of the crypt has the potential to lead us back to mundane moments in the distant past, I am reminded that such moments are still enacted. Whilst someone in the distant future might consider the hands that carved the names of the Bishops of Durham, that person will likely never know of the mundane conversation we had, for instance, or the personal biographies involved in the shaping of this particular part of Durham Cathedral. ‘So, you must have done a lot of work on the Cathedral over the years then?’ I asked as he again took his pencil from behind his ear, making another small correction to his guideline. ‘Oh, loads.’ I smile at the sudden pride and enthusiasm evident in his voice. He continued: I’ve done work on the Rose Window, the tower pinnacles. We came in one morning a good few years back and the verger came looking for us and said, ‘There’s been a huge bang up in the north triforium, we don’t know what it was, but it was a massive bang.’ Well, we went up there to have a look, and it must have been one hell of a bang because one of the crockets had fallen off the corner of the tower and crashed through the triforium roof, through the lead and everything. When the steeplejacks went up, they said that they were all loose, so we had to repair them to make them safe and found that when they’d been put up, they used 2-inch stone dowels. Well, of course, over the years they’d gradually come loose, so we re-carved one crocket and repaired the others and put 10-inch rods in them so that they wouldn’t come loose again.

Asking how long it took to build Durham Cathedral elicits a simple answer: it took forty years from start to finish, or so stewards and tour guides tell visitors. Yet, such an answer tells us nothing of the reality of building. As I demonstrated in the previous chapter, the act of building is not straightforward. Rather, it is a process of negotiation that produces a dialogue between building, environment and material. In addition, it is the result of the needs of those who use and dwell in the building. While the construction of cathedrals may involve a laboratory of building, so too does dwelling. As Patricia Waddy (1990: xi) asserts, buildings have lives that develop over time and the lives of buildings become intimately connected to the lives of the

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people who use and engage with those buildings. However, as buildings come into being through processes of negotiation, building does not cease once the edifice has been erected. Rather, the modes and methods of experimentation shift from construction to caring. In this way, the building continues to grow and change over time, along with those who dwell within it. As I will show in this chapter, as a result of this process of continuous change through dwelling and the differing needs of the building and community, a symbiotic relationship has developed between Durham Cathedral and the community who dwell in it.

Building and Dwelling But what does it mean to dwell in a cathedral? Dwelling in a cathedral is very different to dwelling in one’s own home. Durham Cathedral aims to be accessible to the public and has multiple purposes: it is a space for Christian ritual, a space to commemorate the county’s history and a tourist attraction. Its restaurant serves as a public meeting place. The Cathedral is also a place to learn history, with visits from school children and guided tours, and a place of employment. The list could go on. As a result, many people dwell in the same building in different ways. When interviewing people, I would always begin by asking them to tell me about their day-to-day lives in the Cathedral. These interviews revealed a lot about the different ways in which people relate to the building and something of the way the interviewees dwell in the Cathedral. For example, in an interview with a retired widower, she revealed that she began volunteering as a way of escaping her loneliness and now sees volunteering as a way of spending time with her friends that also gives her the opportunity to meet new ones. In contrast, a member of the choir spoke of seeing the Cathedral, in part, as a stage on which they perform. Members of the clergy spoke of the ‘mission’ of the Cathedral and their role in that mission, while others described the building as a place to meet friends for a coffee or a quiet place to sit and relax. Finally, others described the Cathedral as a place of employment and while many such people commented on how lucky they were to have the Cathedral as an ‘office’, they often found it difficult to see the building as more than a place of employment. From all of these cases, it is clear that people dwell in Durham Cathedral in different ways. The Cathedral has different meanings for different people and enacts different outcomes. What was common to people’s experiences, however, was the fact that the ways in which people engage with the building changes the building. Tim Ingold frames this evolution of the environment as being ‘continually under construction’ (2000: 172). This is illustrated by archaeologist

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Roger Cribb. With reference to nomadic pastoralist tent dwellings and village houses in Turkey and Iran, he argues that while they were almost identical in terms of their basic scheme, their enduring structures were not. When the tents and houses are juxtaposed with one another, it is clear that, in the case of the village houses, new alterations or additions were built ‘on a series of existing structures’ (1991: 156). However, in the case of the tents, each time camp was set up, the occupation of the camp was ‘a fresh event’, meaning that the tents remain ‘permanently retarded in the initial stages of the nomad developmental cycle’ (ibid.). Cribb’s study draws attention to the various ways in which dwellings continue to develop. Whilst, structurally, the tent dwelling may remain in the ‘initial stages of the nomad developmental cycle’, we can safely assume that there is continual evolution as materials become worn and are repaired, and the interior layouts of the tents slowly change over time, as shown by Stephanie J. Bunn (2000) in relation to nomadic Kyrgyz tent dwellings. What is important to note here is that construction does not have to be an intentional new building project; rather, it is a part of the dwelling process. Martin Heidegger develops this idea in detail in his essay ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’, asserting that ‘dwelling and building are related as ends and means’ and that we are not able to dwell by building, but ‘to build is in itself already to dwell’ (1971: 144). Heidegger turns to etymology and the German word ‘bauen’, meaning ‘to build’, which comes from the Old English and High German word ‘buan’, meaning ‘to dwell’. This word has endured in the German word ‘Nachgebauer’ and the English word ‘neighbour’, meaning ‘he who dwells nearby’. However, ‘buan’ ‘not only tells us that bauen, to build, is really to dwell; it also gives us a clue as to how we have to think about the dwelling it signifies’. Here, Heidegger is suggesting that the idea of dwelling is not confined to one activity – to simply dwell would be ‘virtual inactivity’ – rather, he proposes that dwelling encompasses all of our activities, such as those I briefly outlined above. Therefore, although it means to dwell, ‘bauen’ also asks ‘how far the nature of dwelling reaches’. Consequently, ‘I dwell, you dwell’ equates to ‘I am, you are’, in that dwelling is how we are at all times. As such, ‘the manner in which humans are on the earth, is buan, dwelling’. ‘Bauen’ also has other meanings: ‘to cherish and protect, to preserve and care for, specifically to till the soil’ (ibid.: 145), cultivating through preserving and nurturing, as well as to construct, to make something. Thus, building as a process of dwelling begins to reveal itself in view of Heidegger’s point that to be is to dwell and to dwell is both to construct (as in erecting things) and to cultivate (as in growing things). This idea of cultivation, therefore, suggests constant attentiveness to, and work on, the building by its inhabitants, who adapt it to new wants and needs. This cultivation – the sustained attentiveness

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to, care of and work on the building – results in growth, keeping the building alive and protecting it from ruination: Both modes of building – building as cultivating, Latin colere, cultura, and building as the raising up of edifices, aedificare – are comprised within genuine building, that is, dwelling. (Ibid., emphasis in the original)

This cultivation is not always easy and at times the importance of attentiveness is overlooked. For example, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, repair to the stonework would often include repointing the stone with concrete, a much harder and longer-lasting material than the lime mortar used by the medieval builders. The lime mortar, however, being softer than the stone, would absorb water away from the stone, slowing erosion in the process. Conversely, the harder, longer-lasting concrete was less porous than the sandstone and resulted in the moisture being held in the stone, thus speeding up the erosion of the stone itself. The use of hard concrete results in a honeycomb effect where the sandstone has crumbled away. Therefore, lime mortar again became the preferred option in conservation work as it allows erosion and requires continuous repointing, extending the life of the sandstone in the process. This is building with a view to rebuilding, thereby entering into a relationship of caring and tending to. When we think about dwelling as a process of construction and cultivation, we begin to view buildings as never being finished but in need of constant tending to, a process of both making and growing, as the building itself informs the changes it goes through. As Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold argue: We really need a new word, something like ‘anthropo-ontogenetic’, to describe how form, rather than being applied to the material, is emergent within the field of human relations. This is neither making nor growing, but a kind of making-in-growing or growing-in-making. (2014: 5)

Buildings Grow Cumulatively There are two major points to take from the above quotation: the first is that buildings are not built overnight but instead ‘grow cumulatively’ (Ingold 2000: 181). The second is that to dwell is to construct and cultivate. This is the case for all buildings, big or small, and is especially true of cathedrals, which often had centuries-long build times. An excellent example is Durham Cathedral, which volunteers and clergy are keen to emphasize had a build time of ‘only’ forty years. Whilst this is an extraordinary achievement considering the tools available in the years between 1093 and 1133, one has to question what is meant by the assertion that Durham Cathedral was ‘built’ in

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just forty years. Perhaps after forty years it had four walls, a ceiling and was generally usable, but it would not have looked like the Durham Cathedral we see today. For example, the Galilee Chapel at the west end of the Cathedral was not begun until 1170 and the Chapel of the Nine Altars at the east end was not built until the end of the thirteenth century. Other, less obvious changes have also occurred over time. For instance, between 1360 and 1430, the monks had most of the claustral buildings replaced (Shelby 1976: 92). In the eleventh-century cloister layout, the dormitory was in the eastern range, as set out by the Rule of St Benedict. However, as the Chapter House was also in the eastern range, there was no room for the expansion of the dormitory. Therefore, during the twelfth century, the monks moved the dormitory to the western range of the cloister; in the thirteenth century, they had the western range rebuilt, resulting in a more spacious dormitory (Shelby 1976). Drawings of Durham Cathedral from different moments in its history also highlight the continuous building process (see Andrew 1993). Buildings develop over time as a result of the relationship between the community and the building, which is cultivated by the building’s inhabitants and thus constantly changing. Paying attention to Durham Cathedral as you wander through it reveals this process of continuous change through dwelling. For example, figure 8.3, a photograph taken in the north triforium, not only shows a once-open archway that was subsequently closed, leaving just a small doorway, but also shows that the angle of the triforium roof has changed as the roof has been replaced. Further examples range from bricked-up doorways high up in the wall, once used by the monks, to holes in walls left by long-gone partitions. When viewed in isolation, these marks are meaningless, but when viewed as a part of the dwelling process, they begin to reveal past modes of dwelling. Indeed, some areas of the building have become obsolete in relation to their original intentions and so new ‘tasks’ have been found for them. The Monks’ Refectory, for example, was once a place for the monks to eat meals. Today, it forms part of the Cathedral library. Similarly, the undercroft, once used to store the monks’ provisions, is now home to the shop and restaurant. A quick glance through archival etchings and drawings of Durham Cathedral reveals a timeline of a building in a state of constant change, with parts being built and then removed, spires being added and then burnt down. Changes in dwelling habits in the building and constant stylistic changes have resulted in Durham Cathedral telling its own story, a timeline of and testament to its life and the lives of all those who have worked, prayed, socialized and lived within its walls. Additionally, the building is slowly eroding and is continuously cared for, changing as a result. Heavily weathered stones are replaced with freshly cut stones, and stone steps are reshaped after centuries of wear, as can be seen in figure 8.6.

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Figure 8.3.  North triforium door showing a number of alterations. © Arran J. Calvert.

Figure 8.4.  The undercroft in 1899. Photograph by S. Bolas and Co., printed in J.E. Bygate (1905). Public domain.

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Figure 8.5.  The undercroft restaurant after refurbishment. © Arran J. Calvert.

Figure 8.6.  Heavily weathered stones surround freshly cut stone in the external walls of Durham Cathedral. © Arran J. Calvert.

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What these examples show is that although buildings such as Durham Cathedral may go through initial construction periods, the end of this period is not the end of building. Furthermore, they show that it is through construction and cultivation that the building process continues, slowly and continuously altering the building. For example, once the Monks’ Refectory lost its original purpose and was no longer needed as a place to eat, it was up to the community to cultivate the space to suit their needs. Known as the Petty Canons’ Hall, the old refectory was rebuilt as a library, as arranged by John Sudbury, Dean of the Cathedral between 1662 and 1684, following a period of closure for the Cathedral due to the Civil War and resulting interregnum (1649–1660) (Curry 1985: 6): The petty canons’-hall and the guest-hall, since the method of hospitality and diet were changed, were of long time useless and ruined in these last destructive times: But yet our design is, by some reparation of walls, to render the place of the petty canons’-hall more seemly. (Hutchinson 1787: 131)

While not much has survived of the original Monks’ Refectory, this example highlights what happens when spaces fall into disuse. Repurposing represents a key part of the dwelling process for buildings that survive for long periods of time. Cultivation and the growth of the building to find new uses for its spaces are important because empty and unused spaces can fall into ruin. It is also worth noting that whilst dwelling may involve construction, this is not restricted to building new things. As Nigel, the Cathedral mason, pointed out during our discussion, much of his daily work involved reconstruction, fixing and repairing parts of the building, and, in doing so, cultivating it cumulatively.

Tracing Change through Heating One of the best illustrations of how dwelling is articulated through construction and cultivation is the heating system in the Cathedral. Initially, I had not considered the heating system to be an example of change. However, during the ‘Free to Be’ event, when I took my shoes off and explored the building in my socks. I was surprised by the unevenness in the stone slabs beneath my feet, which I had not felt when wearing my shoes. I smiled upon noticing another new sensation: the stones slabs beneath my feet were warm. I took a step to my left, where the stone was much cooler, then stepped back to my right, where the stone was warm. Onwards I went, tracing an underground heating system with my feet, turning whenever it turned, discovering one heated stone slab at a time. I had never considered

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the heating in the Cathedral, though in hindsight this seemed like quite an oversight. The Cathedral is always a warm haven during the winter months, and although the nave of the Cathedral is warm, the Galilee Chapel is always much colder. The reason, I discovered during my sock-footed exploration, is that the Galilee Chapel has no heating. A heating system is important because it shows that the building in question is not only inhabited but inhabited to such an extent that it is necessary for those inhabiting it to heat it in order to dwell therein comfortably, particularly during the winter months. Moreover, a heating system comes at great expense and is difficult to incorporate into such an old building, illustrating not only a great need to heat the building but also a level of dwelling beyond simply passing through. This underground heating system, however, was not the first heating system; indeed, the Cathedral has been heated many different ways over the centuries, revealing some of the ways in which the building has been inhabited and the changing needs of those dwelling in Durham Cathedral. One of the earliest mentions of heating in the Cathedral can be found in the Rites of Durham’s description of the pre-Reformation Cathedral: On the right hand, as yow goe out of the cloysters into the Fermery was the COMMONE HOUSE, and a Maister therof. The house being to this end, to have a fyre keapt in yt all wynter, for the Monnckes to cume and warme them at, being allowed no fyre but that onely, except the Maisters and Officers of the House, who had there severall fyres. (Rites of Durham 1998 [1593]: 75)

According to William Greenwell (n.d. [1879]: 98), the Common House was at the southern end of the undercroft, where the restaurant is situated today. Additionally, there is a small fireplace in the south transept of the Cathedral. However, Greenwell suggests that this fireplace, which was reopened and restored in 1901, burnt charcoal for the thuribles and was perhaps used to heat the altar breads (ibid.: 49–50). Greenwell also highlights a hole through which the fire’s chimney would have passed that was visible in the late nineteenth century. In monasteries, the Common House would often be situated close to or under the library in order to pass heat through the library and reduce dampness in the books. However, in Durham, they were at opposite corners of the cloister. It seems the chimney was diverted from the south transept, through the wall, up through the parlour and into the library for the same reasons. The heating during the building’s time as a Benedictine Priory reflects how the monks lived in the building, following the Rule of St Benedict. Heat was considered a luxury and restricted to the Common House. However, it seems that due to the building’s layout and the community’s need for a space where the charcoal needed for the thuribles

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could be lit, as well as the need to preserve their prized books, a small fireplace was placed in the south transept of the Cathedral, though this was a fireplace of necessity, not comfort. In 1820, a heating system was clearly being considered by the Cathedral Chapter. The Chapter minutes show that a discussion took place on how best to heat the Cathedral, with the sub-dean later proposing a plan to line the walls of the Cathedral with pot-bellied stoves. Although it is not clear when the stoves were installed, in 1847, several new stoves were ordered for the transepts, and a keeper of the stoves was employed to keep the fires burning. This development of the heating system highlights the changing nature of dwelling in the Cathedral, suggesting that more time was being spent in the Cathedral compared to when it was used by the monks, who spent most of their time in the cloisters. The 3-foot-deep underground trenches for the modern underfloor heating system were dug in the  1960s. Indeed, before the installation of this new system, it was reported in the Friends of Durham Cathedral Annual Report (1965–66) that the previous heating system was so deficient that in January 1966 the temperature in the Cathedral did not rise above 6 degrees Celsius. Following the installation of the new system, the 1967–68 annual report comments that ‘People attending the Carol services at Christmas were astonished to find that the rugs which they had brought with them were superfluous’ (Friends of Durham Cathedral, 33rd and 35th annual reports 1967–68). Today, the heating system is used throughout the winter months and switched off in the spring. It heats the main Cathedral and other areas in which the community and visitors may spend time. The heating of Durham Cathedral and how it has changed highlight not only that this is a building in which people dwell, but also the way the building is used has changed over the centuries, from the monks’ heating being driven by necessity to a focus on the comfort of those using the Cathedral. The heating system is only one example of the changes relating to inhabitation that the Cathedral has gone through over the centuries. The process of building does not end when the last stone has been placed. The main focus of building simply shifts from construction to cultivation and growth. These aspects emerge through dwelling and the relationship the dwellers maintain with the building as they care for it and as the building allows them to gather within it. Thus, the Cathedral has never been completed but is in a constant state of building, growing and living, with the heating system being a part of the process of cultivating, along with people such as Nigel maintaining and repairing the ancient building as it adjusts to the way in which people use and relate to it. Changes are made both to care for the building but also to care for those who inhabit the building; thus, the building is tended to through

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inhabitation, resulting in the development of a symbiotic relationship as both building and community become reliant on each other. Buildings are living organisms: ‘they have life-histories, which consist in the unfolding of their relations with both human and non-human components of their environments’ (Ingold 2000: 187). In this sense, building, as Heidegger’s exploration of ‘bauen’ shows, is a continuous process, so for as long as people live in the building, it will continue to change as part of the dwelling process. Consequently, there can be no finished product, only a point at which it matches our own dwelling needs in a specific moment, hence the heating system that adapts to the community’s needs, the doors that were bricked up when they were no longer in use, the rows of chairs laid out on a Tuesday and stored away again on a Wednesday, and the refectory being used as a library. These changes were not made for the sake of changing; rather, they are instances of building through dwelling because it is in ‘the very process of dwelling that we build’ (Ingold 2000: 188).

The Story Cathedral In addition to this process of dwelling through building and its multifaceted connotations, there is another important aspect of dwelling: that of telling stories. Returning to the role of the LEGO builders and their continuing physical shaping of the LEGO Cathedral, those who visited and contributed to the build also had a hand in shaping the model. In the process of paying for and placing LEGO bricks on the modules, many people discussed their memories of the Cathedral. In doing so, they connected the plastic walls, aisles and rooms of the model to the stone bricks, corridors and spaces of the actual Cathedral. As a result, ‘the cognitive and the material are jointly co-produced’ (Turnbull 2002: 125) as spaces of the Cathedral become narrativized as stories of the Cathedral that are told through the medium of the LEGO Cathedral. Additionally, as people engage with the actual Cathedral through the model and the model through the actual Cathedral, it becomes clear that Durham Cathedral itself is constructed and cared for not only through the work of the masons, caretakers, fabric committees, conservationists, etc., but also in the way knowledge of the Cathedral itself is constructed and laid down through the spatialized narratives of those who engage with the building as they remember school trips as children or past visits with lost loved ones. When volunteering at the LEGO Cathedral, particularly when it was quiet enough to talk to visitors as they inspected the model, the visitors would share a variety of memories. ‘I hate LEGO. I absolutely cannot stand the stuff!’

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‘Really! We love it in our house. Not a single Christmas goes by in our house without everyone getting around the table and building something. It’s part of our Christmas Day!’ ‘Oh no, it’s absolutely lethal! You stand on one of those things and you’re bed-bound for a week!’ Two women who had been inspecting the LEGO Cathedral wandered over to see what module we were building. They started a conversation with Les, asking what we were building, to which Les replied, ‘Durham Cathedral, of course.’ ‘So, if we pay £1, do we get to put our own brick on the model?’ one of the women asked. ‘You get to put it on the module that we’re building at the minute.’ ‘Oh, this is a great idea! I’m going to have to get some, aren’t I? I’ll have five bricks, please. You know, my son absolutely loves LEGO. He’s forever playing with the stuff. We still have all the LEGO models he’s built in the house. You know, they might be worth something. They’ll be a canny age by now. Well, I mean, our Jack’s thirty-eight, so some of them are probably thirty years old!’ Having placed her bricks, Les led the two women back to the model to show them where the module being worked on was going to be placed. Having closely examined the spot and taken pictures of the model, one of the women began to talk about her last visit to the Cathedral. Pointing to an area at the east end of the nave, she explained that the last time she had visited the Cathedral was with her mother. She traced a line with her finger of where she and her mother had walked after lighting a prayer candle: ‘I remember we stood here. The window is just incredible, with the sunlight shining through it. She really loved that.’ Memories were recounted around the model on a daily basis. These ranged from playing with LEGO to memories and stories of the Cathedral and, at times, knowledge about the building. For example, a man examining the model turned to me and said, ‘You know, looking at this model, and this corridor in particular, has brought back some long-lost memories of mine.’ He was pointing to the triforium of the nave, a corridor in the upper levels of the Cathedral that no tourist would ever get to see. ‘I was in the choir here in my younger years. 1956 I started and we once had to climb up here and sing. I can’t remember what it was for, but I haven’t seen that corridor for a very long time, and just seeing it here, that day just popped into my mind.’ Although not everyone shared their memories, many did and I often overheard people discussing their memories with one another, prompted by the LEGO Cathedral. Indeed, my days volunteering at the LEGO Cathedral were filled with people relating stories and memories of either LEGO or Durham Cathedral.

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Concerning place memories, Paul Connerton suggests there are two types. The first type is ‘memorial’ place memories, which often emerge through place names and pilgrimages. Place names, for example, ‘can be more than markers and delimiters of place, more than tokens used to mark out and negotiate positions in social interaction’ (2009: 10). Taking Durham as an example, according to the origin story of Durham Cathedral, the descendants of monks of Lindisfarne Priory had been wandering the north for many years when one day the cart carrying the coffin and body of St Cuthbert stopped and could not be moved. Having prayed and fasted for three days, a monk named Eadmer received a vision from St Cuthbert, who asked that his body be taken to Dun Holm (in modern English – Hill [Dun] Island [Holm]). Before long, the monks met a milkmaid in search of her cow, which she had been told was on Dun Holm. Following this woman, the monks eventually found the cow on a hill surrounded on three sides by the River Wear. The cow, which is today known as the Dun Cow, was on Dun Holm, the place where Durham Cathedral now stands, high on its peninsula, surrounded on three sides by the River Wear. The name ‘Durham’ derives from ‘Dun Holm’. Thus, the name ‘Durham’ contains the origin story of the name of the county, the Cathedral and its location. As Connerton suggests, such names are so effective as ‘the mnemonics of a moral geography . . . that the mere mention of a place-name encapsulates a well-known narrative’ (2009: 10). Indeed, this story is one taught to many children who grow up in Durham. The second aspect of place memory is that of the ‘locus’, which, ‘we might consider [as] the house or street’ (ibid.: 30). Although the notion of locus is far less explicit than the notion of memorial, it is an ‘effective carrier of cultural memory’. Part of the reason for this lies in a name’s origin being in a world before ‘mechanical reproduction’, a world Connerton calls a ‘handmade world’ (ibid.: 30), where things come into being slowly. In such a world, large-scale construction projects, such as the building of city walls or the building of cathedrals across Europe, would have been the central event of a region’s history for generations. Indeed, ‘just as a house is the biography of a family, so a great civic building project was part of the collective biography of the inhabitants of a city’ (ibid.: 10). The extended build period of cathedrals meant that the building was also the focal point of activity for many people, including masons, stonecutters, carpenters and numerous others besides, all of whom supported the build effort. For many of these craftspeople, it would have been the focus of their entire career. As such, Connerton proposes that ‘in a handmade world, the term “building” would apply as much to the memory of the continuing transitive activity of the construction as to that of the eventual product” (ibid.: 31, emphasis in the original). It is in the return to a ‘handmade world’ through the building of the LEGO Cathedral that individuals enter into this memory building process.

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Viewing, engaging with and adding to the partially constructed model of the building they have passed through leads people to share their memories of the building and, in doing so, they lay their memories upon the LEGO Cathedral in the same way they lay their bricks, connecting the stone Cathedral with the LEGO one. In a similar vein, Cathrine Degnen argues that ‘both knowledge about the past and the processes of recounting it are intimately connected with places’ (2005: 742). In the LEGO Cathedral, these connections are clear as memories are recalled through engagement with the model of the Cathedral. The LEGO Cathedral also gave rise to ‘sensual and often indefinable recollections’ (Edensor 2005: 144). Through the act of building the LEGO Cathedral and seeing the construction of the model, visitors and builders alike were drawn into the act of memory-building; the act of ‘picking up and playing with an object – sensations delimited by adult custom – can catapult the individual back to childhood’ (ibid.). As discussed above, this aspect of picking up an object such as LEGO, which is inherently an object of play, has much the same effect. Whilst many older individuals’ contact with LEGO brought back memories of childhood, some even older visitors stated that they had never had LEGO when they were young; rather, they played with Meccano. This led to comparisons between the LEGO and Meccano. Thus, the material brought them to memories that crossed between generations of children, grandchildren, family, friends and beyond. As Tim Edensor argues, the ‘power’ of involuntary memories reaches beyond childhood to all areas of life. He writes: ‘These experiences, constituting a storehouse of mundane and extraordinary events, mix sensations – and hence bodily memories – together with the recall of overlapping geographies with their reference points, routes and networks’ (2005: 144–45). When individuals come into contact with the LEGO Cathedral and begin to recount their memories of Durham Cathedral, they too begin to overlap the geography of the model with that of the actual Cathedral. In engaging with the building process, the model becomes a way for individuals to express their memories, evoked by the material used (LEGO) or the actual Cathedral, through interaction with the model. The model, in turn, leads the individuals to build narratives of their memories and thus creates a narrativized space around the familiar twists and turns of Durham Cathedral, as represented in the LEGO Cathedral. As people recount their memories and retell their stories through the model, a transitional spatiality with no single meaning is created as the ‘reconstruction of the narratives of our movements and “dwelling-in”, through which knowledge and space are brought into being’ (Turnbull 2002: 133). Finally, whilst Hallam (2013: 104) argues that the ‘primary aim’ of medical students designing and building anatomical models was not production, but rather the enabling of

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knowledge, the opposite is true of the LEGO Cathedral, the aim of which was production and, by extension, the raising of money. However, once the model began to take shape and the spaces inside became recognizable, the model became a depository of stories and memories relating to both LEGO and Durham Cathedral, thus enabling knowledge.

Between the LEGO and Cathedral ‘Oh, cool! Son, come over here and have a look at this!’ It was another slow Monday afternoon in the undercroft when a loud American voice called from the foot of the steps to an incredibly bored-looking child. ‘Look, they’re building the Cathedral out of LEGO!’ The young boy’s face lit up as he ran to the model. As he and his father began to explore the model, his father pointed out particular parts of the building they had seen, as well as explaining how the Cathedral remains standing. After a while, they wandered over to the current module build and placed several bricks. The boy’s father explained further about what they had just seen in the Cathedral and how that related to the module they were helping to build. ‘You remember where all those candles were? Well, that’s where this column will stand.’ The young boy asked if they could go back into the Cathedral and see all of the parts again. Laughing, his father turned to me and explained that his son had been bored of the Cathedral and complained about wanting to leave, and now he wanted to return to the Cathedral to explore it anew. As has been discussed, Durham Cathedral and the LEGO Cathedral are at times drawn together through the words and actions of individuals looking at, talking about and helping to build the model. At the very start of my fieldwork, the Cathedral Chapter had asked me not to approach visitors to ask them questions, and during my training as a steward, I had been told ‘one must not approach visitors’, instead waiting for them to approach. Consequently, I had worried about being able to engage with visitors. However, the LEGO Cathedral helped mitigate this worry by acting as a starting point for conversation. As shown through visitors’ memories, conversation starting points were not limited to the LEGO Cathedral but often related to the Cathedral itself. These connections between the building and the model were dynamic and ever-changing, revealing something of the individual’s relationship with either the material or the building itself. As individuals placed their bricks on the module, they would often disappear back into the Cathedral to explore the ancient building again as a result of their engagement with the LEGO Cathedral. They would search for ‘their’ column or ‘their’ section of wall, which had previously been nondescript and perhaps ignored but was now the wall or column they had built. As such,

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through the building of these often nondescript parts of the model, the Cathedral slowly began to reveal itself. People would often return to the build days, weeks or even months later, point out parts of the LEGO Cathedral and tell volunteers that they had helped to build those particular parts. As Heidegger reminds us, the very process of building occurs because we dwell and the very word ‘build’ is multifaceted; as construction of the edifice ends, building continues as a process of caring for. Thus, building remains dynamic and whilst we can observe the process of dwelling through the changes that are visible in the building, it is also evident in the stories and memories that people share and lay down on a daily basis. Although this laying down may often go unnoticed in the actual Cathedral, except on occasions when people stop stewards to tell them their stories, the LEGO Cathedral brought the mode of dwelling to the fore through the retelling and laying down of stories. When the building of the LEGO Cathedral began, the model was void of these stories and memories. Yet, people’s involvement in building the model, putting one brick on top of another, helped to build (and rebuild) the stories and memories of the Cathedral and other topics. Thus, a connection formed between Durham Cathedral and the LEGO Cathedral as it became apparent that building as a process involved more than the simple raising of edifices; it also encompassed dwelling. Furthermore, a dynamic relationship emerged between the building and the model, with memories and stories being built upon as new ones were being made, and as a consequence of which blank stretches of wall, once seen as meaningless, became intrinsic parts of the building, built anew by individuals who returned to rediscover the once ignored stretches of masonry. In this way, just as Durham Cathedral is widely regarded in County Durham as ‘our Cathedral’, the community once again claimed its stake in a new Cathedral, the LEGO Cathedral, built not by experts but by the community, both physically, brick after brick, and through the building and laying down of stories and memories.

Chapter 9

Changing

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Introduction In the course of our numerous brief chats, Nigel, a mason at Durham Cathedral, often described the different jobs he did around the Cathedral, such as replacing seventeenth-century drainage pipes around the cloister garth. He also showed me other areas that had been damaged or eroded and were in desperate need of repair and conservation: It all needs to be done, partly because it’s not safe for visitors. They’ve shut off part of an area around the back. I mean, visitors couldn’t get round there anyway, but we can’t really go around there either in case bits of the Cathedral fall off. You can hardly keep up with the work, but then it’s also the cost of repairing everything and then conservation work. It’s difficult for the Cathedral.

Nigel’s comments were a constant reminder that Durham Cathedral has endured the elements for over nine hundred years. While the building is still standing, it is in a constant process of change involving repairs and refurbishment. This change encompasses weathered stones being replaced through painstaking conservation work, the installation of new heating systems, plumbing, sound systems, Wi-Fi, and even new amenities like a gift and book shop, a restaurant and an exhibition centre. As I showed in the first chapter, in order for the Cathedral to be able to host the many different groups of people

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with various agendas who use the building, space is required to accommodate their needs. Therefore, while the continued use of the Cathedral brings in valuable income, which helps with repairs, it is also a contributing factor in its degradation. As such, the need for fixing, repairing and replacing is a common aspect of working on Durham Cathedral. As Nigel explained, today his contract includes not just masonry, but other things such as bricklaying and joinery: ‘Masonry work is actually only a small part of my job now. Most of the time you’re off doing other stuff. I mean, it could be anything. That is why I love it. You could be doing anything from day to day.’ The themes of this chapter reveal themselves in Nigel’s work. There is an ongoing process of change that the Cathedral has to go through in order to stay constantly inhabitable and not fall into ruin. This leads to tensions and negotiations between permanence and change in the fabric of the building as, paradoxically, it is through constant change that the building can remain permanent. While change can relate to the material of the building, it can also involve accommodating people. Any cathedral needs to stay relevant and serve a purpose for its community so that the community might care for it. Highlighting this distinction between permanence and change, Stewart Brand suggests that, ‘Whereas “architecture” may strive to be permanent, a “building” is always building and rebuilding’, arguing that while buildings do not, in general, adapt well, they do so nevertheless ‘because the usages in and around them are changing constantly’ (1994: 2). In the case of Durham Cathedral, this would include substantial changes, such as the loss of its status as a monastic cathedral as a result of the dissolution of the monasteries, its use as a barracks by Scottish soldiers during the 1640s and its use as a prison by Oliver Cromwell to house Scottish soldiers in 1650, as well as changes such as the heating system. Over the course of the centuries and through the various ways in which people have inhabited Durham Cathedral, from monks to collegiate canons, tourists and those attending services, the building has changed considerably, with many of these changes leaving their mark on the building. To observe the negotiation between the permanence of the Cathedral and the process of constant change, this chapter will consider heritage negotiations. I argue that although care for the ancient fabric of the building is a major concern, the authenticity of Durham Cathedral is found not in conservation efforts but in change itself, which involves the challenges and negotiations of constant daily use.

Living with Heritage In particular areas of the community, conservation and heritage were very much the ‘buzzwords’ of my time in the field. The Dean and Chapter were

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only too happy to remind people that they were simply custodians of Durham Cathedral, caring for it and protecting it for future generations. Discussions regarding changes to the fabric of ancient buildings often focus on historical values and authenticity, both of which are seen as important factors in conservation efforts. As Siân Jones and Thomas Yarrow point out, even minor interventions result in alterations that both risk authenticity and destroy evidence (2013: 6). In 1986, Durham Castle and Cathedral were amongst the first sites in the United Kingdom to be designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site under the following criteria: (II) To exhibit an important interchange of human values, over a span of time or within a cultural area of the world, on developments in architecture or technology, monumental arts, town-planning or landscape design; (IV) To be an outstanding example of a type of building, architectural or technological ensemble or landscape which illustrates (a) significant stage(s) in human history; and (VI) To be directly or tangibly associated with events or living traditions, with ideas, or beliefs, with artistic and literary works of outstanding universal significance. (‘Durham Castle and Cathedral’ 2017)

‘World Heritage status is just a badge. That’s all it really is.’ So said Jules, a conservation and planning manager who also volunteered at the LEGO Cathedral. During our hours of volunteering together, I would often take the opportunity to question him about terms and phrases I had heard people use and how they might relate to the Cathedral. Today, I had asked what World Heritage Site status really meant for the building. He said: But what comes along with that status is the management, through things like a management plan. So, for Stonehenge, a management plan would say you manage this site by doing nothing because they conserve Stonehenge by letting it slowly decay. A management plan for Durham Cathedral would say you can change things, but in this particular way, ways which have to be agreed upon by different boards of experts.

Durham University, which owns Durham Castle, employs a co-ordinator in partnership with Durham Cathedral to look after the World Heritage Site (WHS). I was sitting in the office of Seif El Rashidi, the WHS co-ordinator, in the WHS visitors’ centre at the north-east corner of Palace Green. It was the end of a warm sunny day and the Cathedral’s Evensong bell was slowly tolling at the far end of Palace Green. Seif reclined in his chair and gazed out the window. He explained that the WHS does have a management plan and that it is his job to ‘basically make sure that the Cathedral and the University and everyone else is working together to preserve what is outstanding about the site’. He explained that his role is quite varied as he might

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find himself tackling a ‘technical project or sometimes it can be something more about interpretation. I think it’s basically about keeping a balance, really, between preservation and use.’ When I asked how he went about such a task, he laughed wryly and said, ‘It’s not always easy.’ Certainly, the stories I had heard about the relationship between the Cathedral and the university were characterized by disagreement and tension. When Seif left his post at the end of my fieldwork, the local newspaper, the Durham Times, dubbed Seif ‘The man who fixed Durham’s “difficult” cultural reputation’ (Tallentire 2014). ‘It isn’t easy,’ he continued. ‘The thing is, I don’t have authority over anyone. It’s through negotiation, persuasion and persistence’. He used the example of St John’s College, a university college that had developed a project to build a new library next to the church of St Mary the Less: Basically, I had to lobby, so I managed to convince the Cathedral, or at least they were convinced of the idea. But the plan wasn’t very good, and they owned the land, so we then approached St John’s College and said we had reservations about this building, so it’s basically working with people to do it.

In essence, Seif ’s task involved constant negotiation between the old and new; he had to tread a fine line to ensure that the building could continue with its process of constant change in a way that people deem acceptable and that benefits either the community or the building. Although I had anticipated that my conversation with Seif would relate to caring for the bricks and mortar of both Durham Castle and Cathedral, the picture he painted was very much rooted in the idea of community and the use of the Cathedral. For example, he discussed the arrangement of events and activities in the visitors’ centre, and getting groups to use the Cathedral. Additionally, he emphasized his role as an intermediary between both the Cathedral and university, encouraging them to work together. I asked how the WHS status had affected Durham Cathedral and he explained that the Cathedral Chapter had initially been sceptical about it: ‘initially they thought that UNESCO would give them loads of money, which it doesn’t.’ For Seif, the advantage of being a WHS is the prestige associated with the label, as the site is recognized as a place of importance. ‘But you can go beyond that too,’ he argued. ‘It does bring the university and Cathedral together. It’s a good vehicle for joint partnerships and projects and other things like this visitors’ centre, which reflects the interests of both institutions.’ Seif went on to explain that the Cathedral Chapter had eventually come around to the idea of being a WHS:

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The Cathedral once viewed its religious existence as the only thing of importance about it, but I think now they are more accepting of ideas that religious importance and heritage aren’t in conflict and that you can still have 1,700 services a year and still be a very important visitor attraction. I think that’s the difference. The shifting of mindset in recognizing that heritage and an appreciation of the site for heritage values is not in conflict with its religious significance.

This calls to mind the discussion in chapter 6 about the tourism associated with the Flower Festival; sharing the same space with religious worship resulted in tension, which required gentle negotiation to resolve. Seif ’s comments also highlight that getting the Cathedral Chapter into a situation in which negotiation between the two groups would happen naturally was not easy, though co-operation was becoming a more accepted part of life in Durham Cathedral, which was also coming to terms with the various groups of people and the kinds of negotiation it needed to cater for today. Indeed, this sentiment was also voiced by the Dean, Michael Sadgrove, who described the challenge of allowing space for religious worship while also getting members of the Chapter and community ‘on board’ with new activities that were not directly centred on religion. The LEGO Cathedral was a prime example of this. When the community building activity was first suggested, it faced strong opposition and it took time, encouragement and negotiation before it could be agreed upon. ‘It is important that every member of the Chapter is on board with these kinds of initiatives,’ the Dean explained. Seif ’s comments also called to mind the Cathedral’s ‘Events Diary’. The Events Diary is a free booklet that the public can take away with them. Produced every three months, the booklet lists all upcoming events in and around Durham Cathedral. I used it to help me decide which events might be of interest to me. A copy of the February–April 2013 booklet illustrates what Seif had said about the relationship between the heritage of Durham Cathedral and its religious mission. For example, the first page reads, ‘Durham Cathedral forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is famous as the Shrine of St Cuthbert and the resting place of the Venerable Bede, set in breath-taking Romanesque architecture.’ The first page also lists details for guided tours, school visits, spaces to hire within the Cathedral and an advertisement for the Cathedral shop. The next page lists all regular and special services over the three-month period. The main body of the booklet enumerates, in chronological order, all of the events, giving a brief synopsis of each. Even in the Events Booklet, a balance has been struck between the use of the Cathedral as a ‘living space’ in which activities could take place and its use as a place of religion and worship. The events in the booklet range from a

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health walk around the Cathedral’s woodlands and riverbanks, a performance of Romeo and Juliet in the nave of the Cathedral, a ceremony for the switching on of the new Cathedral floodlights, and a Benedictine Day, described as a day to ‘learn more about the Benedictine tradition, as lived in the Cathedral up to the Reformation and its relevance for non-monastic living in the twenty-first century’. Whilst the events cover many areas of community life, events relating to the heritage of the building and area were common and, at times, served as the connection between the use of the building as a place of worship and its status as a heritage site. Commenting on the caring for Buddhist heritage sites in Sri Lanka, conservationist Gamini Wijesuriya argues that in Buddhist communities the past plays an important role and is ‘inspired by the religion itself ’ (2005: 30). Thus, he asserts that the past is ‘living in the present’, a principle that is a key element of heritage. Building on this, he suggests that this idea of the past living in the present, which is deeply rooted in religious heritage, is ‘synonymous with continuity, which is also a fundamental premise of conservation’ (ibid.). This idea of the past living in the present is evident at Durham Cathedral, often through ideas conveyed by the clergy during services and the guided tours. Similarly, at events such as the Benedictine Day, which draws connections between the past and the present, the community actively explores ways in which the past is present today. Perhaps one of the most important cornerstones of Benedictine life that is still adhered to is hospitality, apparent in the painstaking negotiations undertaken to provide space for the congregation, lay visitors and tourists, as described in previous chapters. Furthermore, these connections between conservation, religious heritage and continuity are not only encouraged today; they have always played a key role in the community of Durham Cathedral. When the monks of Lindisfarne Priory left Holy Island with the body of St Cuthbert and arrived at Durham 150 years later in 995 ad, they established a church to house the body of St Cuthbert, one of the most important saints of medieval England. Then, in 1083, the Norman bishop William de St Calais established a community of Benedictine monks at Durham. When Symeon of Durham, a monk of Durham Cathedral Priory, wrote the Libellus de Exordio, one of his main purposes was to emphasize the continuity of the community, reaching back to Lindisfarne. In doing so, Symeon sought to strengthen the community’s claim to the shrine of St Cuthbert and to establish the newly formed Benedictine community in the heritage of the Northern Saint. Importantly, the heritage of Saint Cuthbert, a Bishop of Lindisfarne, not only links back to Lindisfarne Priory, established by Saint Aiden, but also back to Iona Abbey, one of the oldest religious centres in Western Europe. This practice of drawing important lines of ancestry continues today. During the announcement of the new Bishop of Durham, the Dean

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explained that ‘the Bishops of Durham can draw a long and illustrious line all the way back to St Cuthbert and the priory at Lindisfarne’. Indeed, as I chatted with Nigel, the Cathedral mason, he extended this long line, carving into marble the new bishop’s name, the most recent in a long list that begins with Aldhun, who, in 995, became the last Bishop of Lindisfarne (at that time based in Chester-le-Street) and the first Bishop of Durham. While the community of the Cathedral has gone through many changes, continuity is an important aspect of the building and the community’s history. Just as Symeon of Durham did in the early twelfth century, the Open Treasure Project aims to open up Durham Cathedral’s past. In doing so, it draws important lines of continuity that showcase the heritage of today’s community through historical artefacts while also opening up spaces for the public. Seif spoke about how the Cathedral strengthens a sense of community and thus maintains a relationship between the building and the community. According to David Lowenthal, heritage is the ‘chief focus of patriotism and a prime lure of tourism’; he suggests that as we try to hold off a scary future, ‘people the world over revert to ancestral legacies [as] heritage consoles us with tradition’ (2011: xiii). Similarly, Nigel Rapport describes the heritage industry of Britain as ‘one of a set of cultural practices providing existential anchors in a time of social uncertainty’. He further highlights that in the social life of post-war Britain, ‘“heritage” affords continuing individuality and longevity on a variety of levels: individual, communitarian, regional and national’ (2002: 87). As Lowenthal points out, whilst history aims to reveal pasts that have ‘grown ever more opaque over time; heritage clarifies pasts so as to infuse them with present purposes’ (2011: xv). In establishing heritage connections, artefacts that are contemporary to particular places and periods are utilized, for example, personal artefacts of St Cuthbert, such as a comb or a golden pectoral cross found around his neck. The importance accorded to everyday items that have been placed in so-called ‘heritage museums’ results in a certain level of fetishization in relation to these artefacts (Macdonald 2002). Although heritage is ‘a prime lure of tourism’ (Lowenthal 2011: xiii), it is also an act of self-reflection as heritage museums in Britain often focus on ‘telling local stories and articulating local or regional identity’ (Macdonald 2002: 91). While stories such as those told about St Cuthbert and the Venerable Bede are historically important, they are also important in strengthening the continuing sense of community beyond the present, creating links with both the past and the future. Therefore, projects such as the Open Treasure Project, which created space within the Cathedral’s claustral buildings to display everyday items and important historical artefacts, can be viewed as a concerted effort by the Cathedral to develop this continuing sense of community, strengthening its

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links to the past, not only within the community of Durham Cathedral but throughout the county. As seen in the Events Diary and specific events such as Benedictine Day, heritage is again utilized in relation to the everyday narratives that connect today’s community with the communities of the past. Throughout my fieldwork, I attended Cathedral events, at which I met numerous people I knew from stewarding or other parts of the community. The majority of people at these events were members of the local community, as opposed to tourists, and so, in addition to teaching people about the past community of Durham Cathedral, the events served to strengthen the sense of community today. Thus, heritage, as it is utilized at the Cathedral, is not overly concerned with the exact happenings of the past but rather seeks to use the past to further present purposes (Lowenthal 2011: xv), notably strengthening the community in much the same way as Symeon of Durham did in the early twelfth century. Whilst continuity in the community is important, there has also been constant change, first in leaving Lindisfarne and then in all the changes undergone by the building. From the expulsion of the Benedictine community, the use of the building as a Scottish barracks and then as a prison for Scottish soldiers, to the constant changes made through dwelling, change has always been an aspect of life in Durham Cathedral. It is also important to remember that in order to maintain a continuous community or continuous inhabitation, heritage must leave space for change. Consequently, negotiation and improvisation are essential.

Conservation through Change ‘The only constant in working with Durham Cathedral is that everything is forever changing and that conservation really is the process of managing that change.’ I was sitting at the back of Prior’s Hall, located at the back of the claustral buildings of Durham Cathedral. Once part of the prior’s lodgings, the hall is now used as a function room, which can be hired for events. The event taking place on this particular day was the annual general meeting of the Institute of Historic Building Conservation Northern Branch, to which I had been invited to attend by Jules. Chris Cotton, the current architect of Durham Cathedral, was one of the speakers. During his talk, Chris discussed the many pressures faced by the building as a result of various changes, including environmental changes, financial changes, changes in the number of visitors, usage changes and legislative changes. ‘The question is, how do we make these sites sustainable for the future? How do we preserve them and give them additional meaning so that we can pass them on to succeeding generations in good condition?’

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Such questions were distant concerns for architects of the past, particularly architects in the late eighteenth century such as James Wyatt, whose mandate from the Cathedral Chapter focused on the beautification of the building in an attempt to consolidate the architectural style of the Cathedral. Chris Cotton, however, was interested in emphasizing that which was historically important about the building, making changes but also maintaining the building and rendering it meaningful to ensure that it would be usable and liveable in the future. This focus on emphasizing meaning through conservation, as Chris Cotton argued during his talk, is actioned through the Open Treasure Project, which stresses the heritage of the building and community, contributing to the perception of a continuation of the community from Anglo-Saxon Britain through to the twenty-first century. This, in turn, highlights the importance of the continuation of the community, but also, perhaps more significantly, keeping Durham Cathedral alive, moving, changing and continuing on into the future. Unlike in previous generations, it is now understood that it is authenticity that is at stake in the conservation of historical buildings and monuments. As such, the focus is on maintaining any evidence of construction and former ways of dwelling that are still evident in the building, ‘preserving them as far as possible in their authentic form’ (Jones and Yarrow 2013: 4). Yet, as I have shown, a key element of dwelling and heritage is allowing space for change. Authenticity involves an examination of the social or cultural identity in question. To consider an object inauthentic is to argue that, despite what claims might be made, it is not ‘an example of an identified class of objects, or not the creation of an identified person or group’ (Handler 2015: 251). Authenticity is complex, to say the least. In the case of Durham Cathedral, authenticity might be considered in relation to two different areas. First, there is the question of the authenticity of the community, addressed as early as the eleventh century but probably earlier as the descendants of the monks of Lindisfarne continued the community in Chester-le-Street. Second, there is the material authenticity of the fabric of Durham Cathedral. Central to both is an acknowledgement that authenticity is under threat. As Dimitrios Theodossopoulos remarks, tensions between constructivist and materialist approaches complicate the study of authenticity. A materialist approach recognizes ‘authenticity in the material substance of objects (thus, acknowledging their materiality)’; the result is often an expectation that change will be halted, or even an attempt to halt change, so that the authentic might remain static (2013: 351). A constructivist approach, on the other hand, considers the framework through which authenticity is a result of social import or meaning. In the fabric of Durham Cathedral, this tension is clear; whilst, architecturally speaking, the building represents the vanguard of eleventh- and twelfth-century cathedral construction, this is not

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of great importance to the community beyond the significance it lends to the Cathedral. Of much greater significance is the pride associated with the continuity of the community as the spaces once occupied and cared for by Benedictine monks are now occupied and cared for by today’s community. The task of conservation in Durham Cathedral, therefore, is one of negotiation between the fabric of Durham Cathedral as a material example of the achievements of those who built it and a lively and vibrant community that continues to engage with the building, changing it to suit its needs, as has always been the case. The material of the building must be protected without constricting the life of the community to such an extent that it slowly dies away. Although there is agreement that the fabric of Durham Cathedral is culturally important, without the lively community dwelling in and around the building, caring for the building would be far more difficult. Yet, the preservation of authenticity and the change involved in dwelling are not as conflicting as one may assume. As Jones and Yarrow argue, ‘authenticity is neither a subjective, discursive construction nor a latent property of historic buildings and monuments waiting to be preserved. Rather, it is a distributed property that emerges through the interaction between people and things’ (2013: 24). What is key in Jones and Yarrow’s description of authenticity in the context of historic buildings and monuments is that authenticity is attained and maintained through ‘people and things’ and, by extension, negotiation. To simply stop life in Durham Cathedral and preserve the building exactly as it stands today would strip it of its authenticity. Although Jones and Yarrow do not focus much on community, instead focusing on those who make decisions about the alteration of the fabric of historic buildings, those inhabiting and using the building play a vital role in its authenticity. Would a Durham Cathedral with no community and thus void of change resulting from the dwelling of the community be an authentic Durham Cathedral or an ‘authentic’ Durham Cathedral ‘experience’?

Authenticity in Change During my fieldwork, I visited Stirling Castle, which I found to be in stark contrast to Durham Cathedral. At Stirling Castle, entire rooms were newly painted with brand new furniture in an attempt to simulate how the castle might have looked as far back as the sixteenth century. Staff walked around in fine clothes representative of the attire worn in that period. As Stirling Castle’s website suggests, you ‘enter the world of Scotland’s Renaissance kings and queens and discover a world of colour, splendour and glorious craftsmanship’ (‘Discover Stirling Castle’ 2017). Whilst the castle’s appearance may have been historically accurate, it was simply simulating the past, offering

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a seemingly ‘authentic experience’ of a sixteenth-century castle. In short, it was a different kind of authenticity to that of Durham Cathedral. While Stirling Castle offers an authentic glimpse into a time gone by, Durham Cathedral is a building and community managing its past whilst still needing to accommodate the daily needs of its continuing present. The authenticity of Durham Cathedral is change and negotiation. As highlighted by Chris Cotton, change is an integral part of Durham Cathedral and so the management of change is the manner in which the building is conserved. However, change of any kind to the fabric of the building is not easy. Cathedrals across England have external advisory committees that scrutinize any proposed work. There are two advisory boards. The first is the nationwide Cathedrals Fabric Commission for England (CFCE), which, on its website, lists amongst its responsibilities, ‘Determining applications made to it by Cathedral Chapters for approval of works. Giving advice to Cathedral Chapters and others on the care, conservation, repair, or development of cathedrals, or on specific projects’ (‘Cathedrals Fabric Commission’  2017). Additionally, each cathedral is required to set up an independent Fabric Advisory Committee (FAC), whose tasks include: Determining applications made to it by the Cathedral Chapter for approval of works under the Care of Cathedrals Measure. Giving advice to the Cathedral Chapter on the care, conservation, repair or development of the Cathedral or on specific projects. Overseeing the drawing up and maintenance of the Cathedral’s inventory. Drawing up the list of objects on the inventory which, in the FAC’s view, should be designated as being of outstanding interest. (‘Fabric Advisory Committees’ 2017)

Conservation is negotiated not only through maintaining the past and the living present but also through the negotiation of the two, as enacted by different commissions and committees. Emphasizing the difficulty in managing this process of change, Dr Alex Holton, a heritage consultant at Purcell, the company for which the Cathedral architect Chris Cotton works, stated that whilst the significance of Durham Cathedral is undeniable as long as the building stands, ‘Change is inevitable, and so it is essential that the process of change is carefully managed to protect, reveal and enhance the significance of the World Heritage Site’. Here, Alex is referring to the kind of authenticity discussed by Jones and Yarrow, that is, the authenticity of the fabric of the building and its maintenance being managed through change. In concluding their article, Jones and Yarrow suggest that authenticity is not maintained by one particular person or one particular means; rather, it is a ‘distributed practice’, which is ‘“crafted” through different forms of expert practice’ (2013: 22). This echoes comments made by Alex Holton, who suggested that the World Heritage Site can be understood in various ways.

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As a result of this approach to authenticity and change, varying relationships arise through the work that is carried out to achieve such change, be it the work of masons, architects or carpenters. As Cristina Grasseni states, ‘skilled practices literally shape the way we look at the world’ (2009: 11). This draws those of differing skills into differing relationships with the building. Following conservation work at Glasgow Cathedral, Jones and Yarrow comment that they observed these differing views of the building while also observing ‘different ways of enacting the Cathedral as an object of intervention’ (2013: 22, emphasis in the original). This suggestion remained untested during my fieldwork as major conservation work did not begin until after I had left. However, those directly involved in deciding on those changes, for example, Dr Alex Holton and architect Chris Cotton, do offer tantalizing insights into their approach to change, acknowledging its importance in the life of the building and the community. An example of change and negotiation in Durham Cathedral that extend beyond the day-to-day life of the community is the Open Treasure Project. Before my arrival, phase one had already been completed. Phase one saw the redeveloping of the previously dark and dingy undercroft. The shop was moved from the Great Kitchen into the northern half of the undercroft and the restaurant was refurbished. Additionally, the Choir Vestries, situated in the Dean’s Walk tunnel linking the cloister to the college, were updated. During his presentation, Chris Cotton stated that making changes was ‘very much about care, creativity and continuity’. As well as the need to understand the building and its fabric, ‘very often the sustainability of these buildings does rely on being relatively creative in finding new uses that can actually help a building thrive into the future’. By collecting as much historical data as possible, Chris Cotton’s team was able to use past images to inform the changes to be made to the undercroft: ‘we had various images from the archive that showed the cleared undercroft at various points in time that gave a hint towards the potential that the space might be if it were opened up.’ In essence, the building itself informed the change. Considering the changes to the undercroft, Cotton showed that moving the shop from the Great Kitchen to its new position in the undercroft had increased the revenue of the shop; ‘the new shop is a better location, better presentation and it’s now up 59 per cent in terms of takings, and that’s after just over a year.’ Just as authenticity is a distributed practice in cathedral conservation, so too is change a distributed practice, brought about by various causes from various parts of life in and with Durham Cathedral. This further enhances my earlier suggestion that, for Durham Cathedral, authenticity is change. Without the change that is an inherent part of dwelling, Durham Cathedral would be at risk of becoming an ossified relic of a time gone by,

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void of community and lacking the vibrancy that characterizes how it is experienced today.

Conclusion Over the course of this chapter, change and negotiation have emerged as key components of life in and with Durham Cathedral. They are important not only in the conservation of the building, but also in maintaining the life of ‘the Cathedral’. As Brand (1994: 2) suggests, although large buildings do not adapt well to change, change is an inevitable part of the continuing relationship between the community and the building; as the community continues to dwell, the building continues to change. However, the community is seldom involved in decision-making in relation to changes, which is left to advisory boards (the CFCE and the FAC) made up of experts from around the country. Nevertheless, the community plays a crucial role in both driving the change and the manner of change, as those in control of the building reflect on how it is, or it could be, used by the community. As my talk with Seif revealed, the continuation of the community is crucial to the continuation of Durham Cathedral. One of the main reasons why County Durham still has such a cathedral is its community, as people like Nigel, the Cathedral stonemason, actively build and rebuild the Cathedral day after day. In contrast to Sterling Castle’s reconstructed glimpse of a time gone by, Durham Cathedral’s imperfections, its walls pockmarked with holes from old partitions, its bricked-up doorways, its half-painted walls and its defaced effigies all tell a very real story of the life of a building and its community that has been unfolding for the best part of a millennium. And whilst major changes, such as those resulting from the Open Treasure Project, are deeply researched and long considered, Durham Cathedral still experiences a multitude of small, daily changes. The holes in the walls and the bricked-up doorways illustrate the continuing improvised changes made by the dwelling community as they negotiate their daily lives around the building. To restate Heidegger’s (1971) point, to be is to dwell, and to dwell is to construct and cultivate. In Durham Cathedral, the process of continual construction and cultivation is palpable, while in Sterling Castle, the focus is on recreating and re-enacting. Perhaps the main reason for this is that Durham Cathedral is still very much an operating church and thus has much of what is needed to build a community around. In attempting to understand the often complex changes that are made to buildings over time, British architect Frank Duffy proposed the concept of ‘shearing layers’, which was later developed by Stewart Brand. The concept suggests that buildings are separated into various layers, in which varying

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rates of change are visible. Brand (1994) identifies six layers and names them the ‘Six Ss’. Moving from the slowest rate of change to the quickest, he proposes: (1) Site – the location of the building. (2) Structure – the foundations and load-bearing components of a building. (3) Skin – the exterior of the building. (4) Services – today, these would include things like electrical wiring, burglar or fire alarms, a PA system, lighting, etc. (5) Space Plan – the interior layout the building. (6) Stuff – this includes the furniture, such as chairs and desks; in the case of a cathedral this could include books, kneeling cushions or even exhibits. When this is applied to Durham Cathedral, it is clear that the building is in a state of constant change, for example, through the changing of seating arrangements for different services, service booklets changing at different times of year, conservation work upon the exterior of the building, the installation of new heating systems or the repurposing of spaces. Brand further observes that medieval builders would never remove scaffolding from a cathedral because doing so would suggest that the building was finished, thus implying that it was perfect and an insult to God. Whilst buildings of its size and age promote permanence, a trait many would associate with Durham Cathedral, the Cathedral itself, even without visible scaffolding, is in a state of constant change. As Patricia Waddy suggests, ‘Buildings have lives in time’ (1990: xi), and their lives are closely linked to the lives of those who live in and around them. Today, these links are revealed in many ways, for example, through the space-making for exhibitions, the shop, the restaurant, the need for underfloor heating, the Wi-Fi network and the sound system. Furthermore, buildings’ lives are also dependent on a community of people through time. Heritage cannot be thought of as fixed in the past; rather, it must be viewed as part of the tending to, caring for and cultivating that occur through dwelling in and around the Cathedral. As such, as Rapport (2002) suggests, heritage serves as an anchor in times of social uncertainty, because the community is intimately connected to the building in a symbiotic, mutually dependent relationship.

Coda

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A Backdrop to Life Before I began my fieldwork, I met with several art historians, some of whom were members of various cathedral fabric committees. I wanted to do some preliminary research to find out how cathedrals were viewed and treated not only by conservationists and fabric committee members but also by the communities of people who live in and around them. What surprised me about these early meetings was that the members of fabric committees, to whom cathedrals would turn for advice, had little understanding of the communities of people who spend their time in and around these buildings. They would acknowledge that people came to cathedrals, but they expressed little interest in such people. ‘But of course, none of that really matters,’ one such person explained. ‘These buildings are simply a backdrop to life, really. It’s like they play any role.’ I asked what the person meant by this. ‘Well, changes can’t really be made to the building without the agreement of lots of boards and committees who have a wealth of historical and material knowledge about these buildings, and it’s our task to preserve them as best we possibly can to maintain their historical integrity and, of course, leave some room in that to allow people to engage in activities within these buildings. But for all intents and purposes, the buildings themselves are, as I say, backdrops to life.’ My primary intention in this book has been to show that Durham Cathedral is not a backdrop to life. It is not a place in which life happens, but rather a place with which life happens. In the Introduction, I stated

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that this book reveals the complex ways in which cathedrals are intricately woven into collective and dynamic understandings of heritage, community and belonging, arguing that in order to understand what a cathedral is in its current state, one must understand the tapestry into which the building has, for centuries, been continually woven. It is only when we begin to step back and view this wider tapestry of meaning that we can start to appreciate the complex unfolding of cathedrals. Indeed, throughout this book, what has emerged is a symbiotic relationship constructed through the many complex and dynamic interactions between the building and people. In the Introduction, I argued that extended fieldwork was important for research on cathedrals; my findings demonstrate why it is so important. Although other research highlights important aspects of human engagement with cathedrals, it does not reveal the rich depth of engagement. What has been significant for me is the realization that cathedrals are important because people connect with them. In each chapter of this book, people’s connections to the building have been significant, from seeing the building as a place in which to find religion when needed to finding company amongst the vast community of volunteers. Local people become connected to the building through a deep-rooted sense of belonging that exists throughout County Durham as the Cathedral and its history play a role in the historical education of many schoolchildren. Furthermore, it is a source of pride, especially in light of the long-held belief that Durham Cathedral is held in trust for the people of County Durham, a belief that often results in complications. In Part I, the chapters all dealt with the complexity of these connections. For example, chapter 1 examined how community was understood in connection to the building, while chapter 2 magnified this complexity, illustrating how the building supports people’s search to have their spiritual needs met and highlighting Durham Cathedral’s role in the community and the wider county. In these chapters, two elements began to emerge. Firstly, the sense of symbiotic cultivation. As the community tends (through care and attention) to the continuation of the building, this supports the need for a community in the first place. This in turn serves the wider community as a place of spiritual repose and support in times of need. Secondly, the sense of Durham Cathedral as a laboratory of experimentation, in this case experimenting with religion or allowing space for the consideration of important existential questions. Thus, cathedrals act as places of experimentation as the uncertain shapes of belief and non-belief are explored. The discussion of this theme continued in chapter 3, in which the distinction between tourists and pilgrims was examined. We saw that the ‘fuzzy’ distinction between religion and pilgrimage is less important in the dwelling processes of care and cultivation than the ability of cathedrals and their governing bodies to provide space for everyone, regardless of people’s different

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purposes in coming to cathedrals. As such, in that chapter, cathedral governing bodies were encouraged to embrace people’s fuzzy and often vague reasons for visiting cathedrals. Thus, the space itself remains undefined and so can be explored as a fluid space of experimentation by groups and individuals, many of whom come to explore existential questions, immersed in the cathedrals’ unique environment. In Part II, the depth and intimacy of people’s connection to Durham Cathedral is seen most clearly. In his discussion of singing in Durham Cathedral, choir singer Deryck showed that he is involved in a tacit, embodied relationship that directly connects him to the walls of the building, which he must work with to achieve the desired sounds. Indeed, the sound-making process in the Cathedral is important in developing connections between singers, listeners and the environment, and thus offers valuable insight into the complex modes of engagement between Durham Cathedral and those who enter it. Similarly, the discussion of the role of light highlighted that the experience of light is not one of the building impressing itself on an individual but rather an interaction between the individual and the building. As the consideration of space and time in Durham Cathedral then highlighted, these connections are negotiated over time as individuals and groups create space in the Cathedral for their own activities. As a result, space and time in Durham Cathedral can be seen as fluid space-times that emerge through actions. As became clear in Part III of the book, these connections run even deeper when the process of dwelling is understood as building through dwelling – not simply building as in the physical construction of the building, but in the care and cultivation of the building that continues every single day. A significant aspect of the LEGO Cathedral project was how eager people were to build, not because they wanted to play with LEGO but because they wanted to engage further in the dwelling process, through the laying down of their stories and memories in the LEGO Cathedral, just as they do in the actual cathedral. In this process, nondescript walls become replete with meaning. When viewed together, these chapters reveal the important role that cathedrals play in society. The openness of cathedrals offer space, connection and a sense of belonging as individuals are given space to partake in dwelling processes that have been going on continuously for centuries. Whether a person is a part of that process for a long time or simply dropping in, does not matter, cathedrals offer everyone an opportunity to explore and experiment creatively and socially. To suggest that cathedrals are mere backdrops to the lives that are going on within them disregards the complex and dynamic relationships that are created, recreated and negotiated daily as individuals and groups create spaces and times to accommodate their own specific needs. Many of these

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activities do not change Durham Cathedral in a physical manner. However, they do change the building qualitatively and the activities themselves are affected by the building. I have suggested that Durham Cathedral and the community that forms around it are in a symbiotic relationship; without Durham Cathedral, there would be no community, and without the community, there is a high probability that there would be no building. At various points in Durham Cathedral’s history, it has reached this critical juncture. For instance, Henry VIII’s dissolution of over eight hundred religious houses resulted in Durham Cathedral priory being surrendered to the Crown on 31 December 1540, but the building was quickly re-established as a place of Anglican worship with a college of canons in January 1541. Many former monasteries were sold off to landowners, while others, such as Rievaulx Abbey in North Yorkshire, once one of the wealthiest abbeys in England, were left to fall into ruin, with no community. In Durham, however, the last prior of the Roman Catholic Benedictine monastery, Hugh Whitehead, became the first Anglican Dean of Durham Cathedral just one month later. Similarly, the period of the English Civil War proved ruinous for Durham Cathedral. As former Cathedral architect Ian Curry outlined in a 1985 lecture, all of the wooden furnishings that had survived the dissolution were damaged in 1640 by invading Scottish soldiers and then completely destroyed in 1650 when Scottish prisoners from the Battle of Dunbar were held in the Cathedral. Indeed, effigies in the nave still bear graffiti marks, and missing heads and limbs serve as a reminder of that period of destruction. Later, in the 1650s, the spires that once topped the western towers were removed and the materials sold. The outlook for Durham Cathedral was not promising. Following the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Durham Cathedral was reopened, and a Chapter meeting – the first since 1642 – was convened on 3 November 1660. Those at the meeting took stock of the state of the Cathedral: whereas the fabric of the Church and Chapter House is Exceeding Ruinous, the Leads much decayed, the Windows almost totally broken, and noe seats in the Quire, but such as have been made since his Majesties happy Restoration . . . Hospitalities, Residences, etc. are impossible to observe for the present by reason of Ruines of the Deanery and Prebendaryes houses and want of furniture and other accomodations. (Chapter Minutes Vol. 1 November 3rd 1660)

Today, it is difficult to imagine a building such as Durham Cathedral falling into such a ruinous state. However, at those key historical moments, it was a very real possibility and indeed other historically important buildings did fall into ruin, never to recover. Durham Cathedral did recover though. No doubt, there were many reasons for this, which we cannot go into here.

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What we can say is that Durham Cathedral did not magically restore itself and wait for people to re-enter; rather, a community of people was gathered together by the building and sought to restore it to a state in which the community could comfortably dwell again. In this way, the symbiotic relationship that exists between the building and the community has been brought to the fore at various points in the Cathedral’s past when it was on the point of ruination only for a community to return to the building, ensuring that it continued on. Perhaps this understanding of dwelling as involving cultivation and care also incorporates the important notion of continuation in Durham Cathedral. Just as the monks of Lindisfarne were eager to continue on as a community without a building or monastery to call their own but gathered around the mortal remains of St Cuthbert, Symeon of Durham’s twelfth-century Libellus de Exordio also sought to emphasize the continuation of ‘the’ community around the constant that is St Cuthbert. Today, St Cuthbert’s role as the central gathering point of the community is still pronounced in the City of Durham and County Durham as a whole, as his pectoral cross and name are prevalent. However, the building that was built to house his shrine has become the more important gathering point, drawing people together who in turn build/cultivate their surroundings, working with the building in this symbiotic relationship.

Gathering In Martin Heidegger’s well-known essay ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ (1971), in which he delves into the etymology of ‘dwelling’, he asks the question ‘in what way does building belong to dwelling?’ In response, he introduces one of his more convoluted concepts. Described in an unhelpfully poetic manner, the fourfold of earth, sky, mortals and divinities does not refer to kinds of things but draws attention to what Heidegger might call ‘the thinging of things’. For him, the fourfold is constantly present in all things and draws attention to manner in which things gather the fourfold and in doing so creates a locale and, therefore, space. As Heidegger points out, ‘spaces receive their essential being from locales and not from “space”’ (1971:  152). A central point in ‘Building Dwelling Thinking’ is that the relationship between humans and space is expressed through dwelling. Therefore, we can look at Durham Cathedral as a building that is constructed/cared for, with a sense of place being expressed through the act of dwelling. In gathering – which ‘by an ancient word of our language, is called “thing”’ (ibid.: 151) – and providing a sense of place, Heidegger uses a bridge crossing a river as an example. However, I want to apply this to

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Durham Cathedral and consider the Cathedral’s gathering and the implications of creating a sense of place. When we think of a bridge, we often reduce it to its basic function of allowing us to cross over an obstacle such as a river. However, for Heidegger, the bridge cannot be thought of as merely a bridge or a symbol for something, as this ‘expresses something that strictly speaking does not belong to it’ (ibid.); rather, it gathers the fourfold together into a thing that alludes to the interplay of the fourfold; namely the concealed and revealed nature of things and the being something specific and something at all, with all things being the unity of the fourfold coming together as one. Heidegger asserts that it gathers the fourfold in such a way as to allow a site for the bridge. Neither the location of the bridge nor the location of Durham Cathedral existed before the bridge and the Cathedral stood in those locations. There were, of course, various places where the Cathedral could have been placed, but the location of the peninsula – described by Walter Scott as being ‘Half church of God, half castle ’gainst the Scot’ – only comes into being because of the Cathedral. As such, the Cathedral did not come to the location – though the Cathedral’s origin story suggests that the location was divinely given – rather, the locale came into being through the building that was constructed there. Space emerges from this locale in which the fourfold has been gathered by a thing such as a building. Heidegger makes a point of describing this space as something that room has been allowed for, that has been ‘freed’ within a boundary (1971: 152). However, ‘a boundary is not that at which something stops but, as the Greeks recognized, the boundary is that from which something begins its essential unfolding’ (1977: 356). That essential unfolding is inherently connected to those who are dwelling. As Heidegger’s description of a farmhouse in the Black Forest illustrates, in gathering the fourfold of things into a ‘simple oneness’, the farmhouse was not built outside of the world but unfolded and continues to unfold within the world: It placed the farm on the wind-sheltered mountain slope, looking south, among the meadows close to the spring. It gave it the wide overhanging shingle roof whose proper slope bears up under the burden of snow, and that, reaching deep down, shields the chambers against the storms of the long winter nights. It did not forget the altar corner behind the community table; it made room in its chamber for the hallowed places of childbed and the ‘tree of the dead’ – for that is what they call a coffin there: the Totenbaum and in this way it designed for the different generations under one roof the character of their journey through time. (1971: 158)

In this way, we see that building unfolds in relation to the world and humans. Thus, as I have tried to show throughout this book, Durham

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Cathedral is an unfolding of life, with the building itself becoming an expression of dwelling over centuries. In emerging as a continuous unfolding expression of dwelling, the Cathedral has come to represent a dynamic identity and is understood as this unfolding. As with many other cathedrals and community buildings, Durham Cathedral cannot simply be considered a backdrop to life going on in the building. Nor can it be seen as a representation of the community. Rather, such cathedrals and community buildings are living, symbiotic organisms of dwelling continuously unfolding over time. Therefore, the essential quality of Durham Cathedral as a gathering of the fourfold is an unfolding of being itself and, as such, the building is much more than a simple place of religion or tourism or heritage or even community. With this in mind, I want to return to the idea of Durham Cathedral as a laboratory: a laboratory of construction in which masons negotiated material, employing templates to facilitate the construction process, and a laboratory of the soul, as Stephen Platten (2006) suggests, in which space is opened up in the religious spaces of the Cathedral for people to experiment with their belief systems, with the Cathedral being seen as a place that can and will address spiritual needs, directly or indirectly. Perhaps most saliently, it is a laboratory of dwelling as various groups of people come together in the one locale of Durham Cathedral and find that space is available for them to engage in the messy practices of negotiation that continuously unfold every day. This is not always easy, however, and in many ways it would be easier for the Chapter to hinder the opening up of spaces and focus on religion. But, as became apparent during my fieldwork, there is an implicit ­understanding – often articulated in the Chapter’s view that it is simply a custodian of the building – that Durham Cathedral is the outcome of much more than religious worship. It is an expression of dwelling that continues to unfold as a result of the engagement and interaction of an abundance of people over time. The former Dean of Durham Michael Sadgrove’s experience of the building as an ever-changing, catalytic workshop in which things can be tried and tested attests to the laboratory-like nature of Durham Cathedral. Furthermore, he suggested that Durham Cathedral is not just a frame or a matrix within which created activity happens. It’s the place of the spirit, that bit that you can hardly put into words, but you know it when you experience it. That is the gift that the building is. The organism is a spirit, whether it’s a capital S, the Spirit of God, or a small s, the spirit of humanity, that’s what it is.

Thus, there is an understanding that extends beyond Durham Cathedral simply being a place in which people can experiment towards the gathering

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nature in which Heidegger finds the ‘marriage’ of the fourfold in which ­interplay – of the concealed and revealed nature of things and being something specific and something at all – reveal a very particular space that unfolds in ways in which ‘you can hardly put into words, but you know it when you experience it’. It is important to note that dwelling is also risky because Dasein – a German word that Heidegger uses to refer to human existence – is finite. In light of this, the Cathedral reveals itself to be a space in which the finitude of Dasein comes to be commemorated both through religious services and through stories and memories. As the LEGO Cathedral illustrated, the act of building involves constructing narrative. In experiencing the stones cut by long-dead masons, the finitude of Dasein is highlighted but also appreciated in the continuation of dwelling. Throughout my fieldnotes, the finitude of life and the risk inherent in dwelling are recurrent themes. Ken’s search for a community that provides him with the kind of religious space he seeks now that his children have grown highlights this passing of time and the understanding that Dasein is limited. The continuity of the building then becomes a vessel in which the dwelling process can unfold. This process has been threatened but has so far continued on. This continuation is not the result of the efforts of a single person but is rather the result of the communal day-to-day dwelling of the symbiotic organism that is ‘the Cathedral’.

The Importance of Cathedrals The way I speak of Durham Cathedral is doubtless the way many who dwell with other historically or communally significant buildings speak, or it will at least resonate with their experience of the buildings with which they dwell. This sense of dwelling is, I believe, more keenly felt in buildings such as cathedrals that have come to represent more than religion. Just as the bridge Heidegger describes is more than a simple bridge, cathedrals are also ‘more than’; they become repositories of experience that are difficult to articulate. As I have repeatedly demonstrated throughout this book, the understanding of the Cathedral is very much grounded in a vague, imprecise ‘more than’; it is a rich fuzziness of conflict and tension in which people regularly contradict themselves and move between various understandings of belief and belonging, of dwelling and engaging, and of creativity that mutually shapes the community and building. In this book, I have not presented an intact, unimpaired reconstruction of dwelling; rather, I have offered a series of partial expressions of dwelling, each highlighting, in however narrow a sense, the eclectic, dynamic expressions of dwelling that contribute to a mosaic of the experience of living with a cathedral.

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Research conducted on cathedrals has often focused on one of two perfectly acceptable, though overly restricted, aspects. The first is the history of the buildings, whether that be in relation to their architecture, how they came to be built or the people who built them – in essence, how the buildings came to be what they are today. The second is religion: how is religion articulated in the building? How can religion reach out to others? There is some research that comprises a mixture of religion and history. However, very few have attempted to view cathedrals as constructions of continued dwelling. Writers such as Steen Eiler Rasmussen (1957) and Juhani Pallasmaa (2012) have illuminated a direction that can be taken in discussing the experience of architecture and the continuous reciprocity between architecture and people. Indeed, architectural and Heideggerian theorist Christian Norberg-Schultz details an existential approach to dwelling in a city, arguing that ‘architecture represents a means to give man an “existential foothold”’ (1980: 5); here, the term ‘existential foothold’ is synonymous with dwelling. Norbert-Schultz succinctly points out that man dwells ‘when he experiences the environment as meaningful’ (ibid.). When, on 15 April 2019, a fire broke out in Notre-Dame de Paris, television channels disrupted their normal schedules to broadcast live footage of the fire and newspapers released special editions covering every detail of the fire: how it might have broken out and what might happen in the future. Within hours of the fire starting, millions of euro were being pledged to a rebuild effort; within two days, that figure had reached €1 billion. As the fire was brought under control, President of France Emmanuel Macron declared that ‘Notre-Dame is our history, our literature, part of our psyche, the place of all our great events, our epidemics, our wars, our liberations, the epicentre of our lives . . . So I solemnly say tonight: we will rebuild it together.’ This sentiment of a collective history, literature and psyche is reflective of sentiments that have informed the understanding of Durham Cathedral and other cathedrals. Their extended periods of being a part of the dwelling process creating a repository of life that finds its way into the collective psyche of the community for the simple reason that these buildings are a part of what has been, and is being, created. Perhaps one of the more striking occurrences during the fire at NotreDame was the crowds of people who gathered on the streets of Paris. A report published the next morning in The Guardian reflected the feelings of those who had gathered. For example, a student from Normandy who was studying at the Sorbonne commented that ‘there’s a feeling of total sadness and anger . . . It’s our heritage. Whether you’re Christian or not, part of our history is going up in smoke’ (Chrisafis and Henley 2019). A man who lives just metres from the cathedral remarked that ‘it’s a symbol of France that is collapsing there, part of our national identity going up in smoke. Part of

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our history, our culture, our literature’, with his wife adding that ‘we have known the cathedral since childhood . . . It’s part of our personal history, too’ (ibid.). What was revealed by the Notre-Dame fire and the reactions in the city, country and across the world was people’s deep connection to the building, which is akin to the connection I experienced during my time in Durham Cathedral and that felt by others in relation to other cathedrals around Britain. Such reactions and displays of connection to cathedrals underscore my point that cathedrals are not simply vessels of meaning, prestigious medieval displays of power, places of worship or backdrops to our daily lives. Rather, they are woven deep into a collective and dynamic understanding of heritage, community and belonging. They are a source of pride and they are places where people can seek spiritual understanding regardless of their religious outlook. They gather people together around diverse and widereaching ideas, some tangible and some intangible. They are beacons of recognition, from a religious perspective, but also of heritage; within their walls, ideas of the past are remembered and enacted, creating a distinctive place to which the community – regardless of distance – belongs. This is evident in visitors who consider another cathedral to be their cathedral, with the result that Durham Cathedral, for instance, never quite reaches the same heights as their own cathedral because they are not invested in many of the more intricate and localized aspects of Cathedral life.

Genius Loci (The Spirit of Place) In conservation circles, there are rigorous debates about the conservation of cathedrals. For instance, in Notre-Dame, debates have centred on whether the cathedral should be reconstructed as it was before the fire, given a ‘modern twist’ or, as Macron suggested, simply made ‘more beautiful’ than it was. At the heart of all of these perspectives is a consideration of the authenticity of the building and a recognition that the material and the evidence it contains is of intrinsic value within the ‘thing’. However, following Heidegger, there is a need to understand that the thing – in this instance, a cathedral – emerges from the gathering of the fourfold. As floral and abstract as this may sound, what is important is that the unfolding of cathedrals through dwelling is what makes them what they are at the moment of encounter and so their continuous unfolding through dwelling, in all of its fuzziness, must be recognized, particularly in discussions of authenticity in conservation. As I have tried to show in the case of Durham Cathedral, cathedrals are more than they appear to be on the surface. By engaging with them, they

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begin to reveal themselves (the revealed and concealed elements of the fourfold). Similarly, whilst it is possible to speak of generic similarities between cathedrals as being a history, a literature and a particular psyche, we must also acknowledge the specificities of individual cathedrals (the something at all and something specific elements of the fourfold). Thus, the dynamism of the symbiotic relationship that exists and unfolds within cathedrals gains a new level of importance. Emerging from the unique combination of people, architecture, history and material is the distinctive character of the locale, which unfolds from dwelling. This genius loci, or ‘spirit of place’, is experienced not simply as the sum of all its parts, many of which I have discussed throughout this book. Rather, as I have alluded to, it is a complex interplay of these elements, creating a ‘largely intangible atmosphere’ (Bognar 2000: 188) or a ‘quality without a name’ (Alexander 1979: 19). As Botond Bognar points out, a home – understood not as part of the traditional house/home dichotomy but as a place from which a person derives identity – is at once a repository of and witness to life (2000: 189). Indeed, in the unfolding of dwelling, people find something of themselves and their identity. Cathedrals have come, over time, to embody the regions in which they are situated. Durham Cathedral, for example, is situated in the heart of the Durham Coalfield and mining is, for many, a key part of the region’s identity and heritage. Durham Cathedral Priory owned and operated a number of mines in the past (Brown 2013), while a colliery in the village of Ferryhill in County Durham was named Dean and Chapter Colliery because the land of Ferryhill belonged to the Dean and Chapter. Although coal mining is now a thing of the past, it is still a key part of the people of County Durham’s sense of identity and heritage, which is proudly woven into the fabric of the Cathedral. For example, the miners’ memorial book contains the names of all of those who lost their lives mining in County Durham. Similarly, the Christmas nativity, a wooden nativity scene carved by a retired Durham miner, stands in the nave during the Christmas period; it includes not donkeys but pit ponies and Jesus rests not in a manger but in a choppy box (a box used to feed the pit ponies), while the innkeeper is a miner carrying his miners’ lamp. Additionally, in 2018, a temporary exhibition entitled Miners: Pitmen, Pride and Prayer was held in the exhibition spaces that were a part of the Open Treasure Project, ‘showcasing artefacts, documents, photographs and stories of the rich mining history of County Durham and North East England’ (Durham Cathedral 2018). Finally, the Durham Miners’ Gala is held on the second Saturday of July every year. It was once a gathering of miners from around the region and today it is one of Europe’s largest socialist gatherings, at which members of those communities gather to display their banners. The service of the blessing

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of the banner, in which the music is provided by brass-bands, is one of the busiest events of the year for Durham Cathedral, with people turning up an hour or more before the service to get a seat. It is the only service in Durham Cathedral at which there is not enough space, seated and standing, for all those who wish to attend. Master of the Choir James Lancelot stated that ‘in just the same way as the monks’ Plainsong has soaked into the stone, so too has brass-band music soaked into the building’. Having a ‘sense of place’ is important to both an individual’s needs and the wider community in material and spiritual ways. When people find what they are looking for, they develop intimate connections with the space. For many people, that sense of place is found in their own house, which consequently becomes a home; as has emerged through the course of this book, the same can be said of cathedrals. The multiplicity of experience is closely linked to the manifold environment, as seen in chapter 6’s discussion of space-time. Similarly, perception and experience are not definitive experiences but are, rather, dependent on our personal histories and our idiosyncratic ways of engaging with the world. Hence, the environment takes on meaning in relation to me (Ingold 2000). Therefore, the extending and unfolding temporality and openness of cathedrals allow people to explore the spaces physically and spiritually and to recognize themselves in the cathedrals’ history and community, giving rise to the potential for a wide variety of interactions within cathedrals. These spaces, however, cannot be created with any calculated certainty. Doing so would reduce the meaning of place to a utility (Arendt 1958: 154). Rather, the spaces are intuitively realized through the daily unfolding of life. This ambiguity – the fuzziness that is inherent in the spaces of cathedrals precisely because of their capacity as places of deep personal and communal connection – becomes catalytic, generating ‘creative human responses involving imagination, memory, association, differentiation’ (Bognar 2000: 190). Perhaps most importantly in this unfolding of life, this fuzzy ambiguity both receives meaning from and gives meaning to the environment as a place of experimentation, evoking in this process the spirit of place. I want to reiterate Dean Michael Sadgrove’s words, in which he defines this idea of the spirit of place as that which emerges in the daily life of cathedrals: I experience the building as responsive, which is to say, ever-changing. It’s also catalytic in that it inspires ideas. It’s a workshop. It’s an aircraft hangar from which machines start flying. It’s a laboratory where things can be tried out and tested. It’s a concert hall. It’s an arts centre. It’s a temple, I could go on and on. It’s a place that brings people together, so it’s somewhere that things really creative can happen . . . it’s the place of the spirit, that bit that you can hardly put into words, but you know it when you experience it. That is the gift that the building is. The organism is a spirit; whether it’s a capital ‘S’, the Spirit of God, or a small ‘s’, the spirit of humanity, that’s what it is.

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Thus, the importance of cathedrals in the British psyche goes beyond the overtly religious towards a place in which the past and present are engaged in meaningful ways. Cathedrals are also places in which the wider communities can depend on as ‘existential anchors’ at times of ‘social uncertainty’ (Rapport 2002: 87). These are places in which heritage, along with the buildings themselves, are not objects of the past consigned to display cases, frozen in time, with small plaques giving brief snippets of information. Rather, they live, breathe and respond to the community, whether the members of that community were born in the region, moved to the region or simply feel an affinity with the building. This ability of cathedrals to bring people together and allow them the space to create dynamic, multifaceted, complex and meaningful relationships underlines the importance of understanding how we engage with significant structures such as cathedrals. There is, at times, a tendency to view historical buildings as forming a dichotomy between the material of the building and the building’s inherent historical materiality. In such a dichotomy, the importance of the community can be set aside in as much as the community simply needs a place in which to gather. However, such a view, again, reduces the place to its utility (Arendt 1958: 154). What I have argued throughout this book is that the material of these buildings and their inherent historical materiality are a symbiotic product of the building/community relationship. Therefore, to fully understand a cathedral, it is not only important to understand its community and the history of the community, which is invariably connected to the cathedral’s history; one must also acknowledge the symbiotic relationship that exists and understand that the importance of the material and materiality of these buildings is a result of that. As such, to treat these buildings as being in disjunction is to misunderstand their full meaning and importance, which derive from a millennia of continuous dwelling and creativity and which continue to unfold today. Consequently, it is important to recognize that cathedrals are not places in which life happens but places with which life unfolds.

Postscript



Since the conclusion of my fieldwork, much has changed in Durham Cathedral, as you might expect. Many of the clergy I interviewed have retired, including the Dean Michael Sadgrove, Canon Rosalind Brown, Archdeacon Ian Jagger, Master of the Choir Canon James Lancelot and Chapter Clerk Philip Davies. With these changes, the focus and the decisions made change, just as they have in the past. Some events that might highlight these changes include the filming of part of the Hollywood film Avengers: Endgame in the Cathedral. Interviewed with the film’s directors Anthony and Joe Russo in the cloister garth, the subsequent Dean of Durham Andrew Tremlett, who has since left to become the dean of St Paul’s Cathedral in London, said: Having the Russo brothers and Avengers crew on site at Durham Cathedral provided an unrivalled and unique opportunity for us to share our rich Christian heritage and historic cathedral city to a worldwide audience. Throughout the filming period, the crew firmly respected our core purpose of worship as a living church, as we allowed them to use this special space to bring the age-old story of good versus evil to life. My colleagues and I are extremely excited to see the final product and how our beautiful Cathedral will appear on screen. We also look forward to strengthening the regional economy in the wake of the release, as we prepare to welcome new visitors to the Cathedral, intent on seeing the filming location first-hand. (Durham Cathedral 2017)

Additionally, the wooden porches erected in the 1970s that covered the fine stone carvings around the North Door and the south doorway leading

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to the cloister have been replaced with glass porches in a style that carries through from the undercroft and aligns with Cathedral architect Chris Cotton’s desire for the Cathedral to be seen in all of its architectural glory. The Open Treasure Project was completed in 2016 and received over forty thousand visitors in the first eleven months. A new visitor desk has been installed at the back of the nave and although the Chapter is still committed to free entry to the Cathedral, it has, as was suggested in chapter 3, somewhat blurred the lines between a fee and no fee as visitors are no longer confronted with a box for donations, instead being guided past the visitor desk, at which they are told the donation price. According to Historic England, the Cathedral has also ‘adopted a model similar to that of the national museums: free entry to the main space, with charges for exhibitions’ (Historic England 2019). Finally, during the 2020–21 coronavirus pandemic, Durham Cathedral was forced to close its doors to visitors and worshippers alike. However, this did not stop worship from taking place; the Cathedral began to broadcast its daily services on Facebook Live from within the Cathedral and it continued to broadcast the services even as restrictions eased. From a small group of Benedictine monks to the present-day live broadcasts of worship streaming across the globe thanks to the Cathedral’s Wi-Fi network, the wires of which pass through the walls built by nameless masons almost a millennium ago, the only constant in Durham Cathedral is change. Durham, 2021

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Index

action system(s), 110–13 ad hoc, 77, 128, 131, 134, 136–37, 139, 142 agency, 18, 58, 78–81, 83, 90, 125 apprentice, 136, 141 column, 129 architecture, 7, 9–10, 15–16, 19, 25, 51–52, 73–76, 78–84, 87–92, 125–26, 128, 160–61, 163, 167, 181, 183, 187 Arendt, Hannah, 184–85 atmosphere, 34, 65, 84, 89–93, 95–97, 103–4, 108, 115–16, 183 authenticity, 7, 10, 12, 160–61, 167–70, 182

Brand, Stewart, 132, 134, 160, 171–72 kink, 132–34, 137–38 Brandon, Samuel George Frederick, 116 brass band, 82, 184 building, 1–2, 4, 6–13, 15–20, 24–25, 27–28, 30–31, 33–39, 41, 44–47, 49, 51–56, 58–60, 65–66, 68, 70, 72–85, 88–91, 94–98, 104, 107, 111–12, 122, 125–26, 128–39, 143–47, 150–82, 184–85 the building process, 125, 128–29, 131–36, 147, 150, 155–56 rules of thumb, 129, 136–37 Bunn, Stephanie, J., 145 Burkholder, J. Peter, 76

Badone, Ellen, 56 Bagenal, Hope W.A., 75 balance, 53, 85, 90, 162–63 belief, 42–46, 48, 117, 174, 179–80 believe, 41, 48, 118, 180 non-belief, 45 bell(s), 23, 63–64, 67, 89, 95, 161 belonging, 12, 24, 37, 42–43, 174–75, 180, 182 believing without belonging, 42–43 Benedictine, 7–8, 18, 29, 35–36, 38, 54–56, 66–70, 73–74, 81–82, 89, 102, 104, 151, 164, 166, 168, 176, 187 Rule of St Benedict, 6, 8, 18, 66–67, 147, 151 Bergson, Henri, 14, 110, 120 Duration (la Durée), 120–21 Bille, Mikkel, 90 Blesser, Barry, 73, 75 Bognar, Botond, 183

Caie, Eliza, 13 Calendar, 17, 70–71, 94, 99, 102–6, 109–10, 113, 116 Fortnightly, 98–99, 102–6, 109–10, 113, 116, 121 care, 2, 12–13, 31, 37–39, 145–46, 152, 160, 169–70, 174–75, 177 Cathedra, 6, 8–9 Certeau, Michel de, 69 change(s), 4, 7, 9, 16–19, 29, 40, 48, 70–72, 90, 120, 131–33, 135–36, 138–39, 144–47, 150, 152, 153, 158–62, 165–73, 176, 186 changed, 2, 4, 8, 17, 29, 41, 52, 71, 90, 96, 99, 112, 126, 135, 147, 150, 152, 160, 186 changing, 18–19, 29, 36, 47, 59, 71–72, 88, 90, 96, 113, 120, 126, 133–34, 139, 147, 151–52, 157, 159–60, 166–68, 172, 179, 184

198 • Index

chant, 67, 75, 81 Gregorian, 67, 70, 75, 81 Plainsong, 66–67, 75–76, 82, 184 chapel, 17, 39, 94, 116–17, 135 Durham Light Infantry, 45, 135 Galilee, 17, 28, 39, 94–96, 107–8, 115–19, 131, 147, 151 Gregory, 88, 109 Holy Cross, 109 of the Nine Altars, 50, 88, 119, 135, 140, 147 Chapter, 8–9, 24, 27, 30–31, 35, 38, 43, 50–51, 53, 55, 59, 95, 102, 112, 115, 147, 152, 157, 160, 162–63, 167, 169, 176, 179, 183, 186–87 Chapter Clerk, 24, 27, 37–38, 47–49, 51–52, 140, 186 Dean, 8, 24, 26, 29–30, 36, 41, 47, 68, 77, 93–94, 102, 109, 115–16, 122, 150, 152, 160, 163–64, 176, 179, 183–84, 186 Chartres Cathedral, 128 choir, 28, 51, 65–66, 70–74, 76–81, 83, 87, 94–96, 104, 114–15, 119, 126, 144, 154, 170, 175, 184, 186 Chris Cotton (architect), 91, 166–67, 169–70 Clegg, Andy, 13 Cohen, Anthony P., 24 collisions, 104, 106, 110, 122 commercialization, 29–30, 37–39 community, 2, 4–9, 11–13, 16, 18–20, 23–27, 29–38, 40–49, 52, 54, 58–60, 66, 71–72, 74, 82, 96, 98, 102, 104–6, 110–11, 113–14, 120–22, 125, 127, 131, 135, 144, 147, 150, 152–53, 158, 160, 162–72, 174, 176–82, 184–85 communities, 9, 11, 19, 23, 26, 33–34, 36, 38, 47, 164, 166, 173, 183, 185 conflict, 58–59, 105, 163, 180 congregation, 19, 31, 50, 65–66, 70–71, 74–75, 77–78, 87, 94–97, 104–5, 113, 115, 117–19, 164 Connerton, Paul, 155 conservation, 10, 12, 19, 31, 53, 146, 153, 159–61, 164, 166, 172–73, 182 construction, 5, 10, 15, 19, 36, 38, 66, 126, 128–29, 131, 139, 143–46, 150, 152, 155–56, 158, 167–68, 171, 175, 179

continuity, 6–7, 11, 13, 35–36, 38, 164–66, 168, 170, 180 conversation with God, 68–69, 71, 73 co-spatial, 117–19 co-temporal, 116–19, 121 creativity, 12, 16, 47, 112, 122, 131, 136–37, 170, 175, 180, 184–85 Cribb, Roger, 145 cultivate, 12, 24, 31, 37, 39, 145–47, 150, 152, 171–72, 177 cultivation, 12, 13, 37–38, 45, 145–46, 150, 152, 171, 174–75, 177 Curry, Ian, 176 dark, 7, 17, 40, 85, 87–91, 94–95, 116–17, 126, 170 darkness, 67, 85, 89–90, 93–96, 115–16 Davie, Grace, 42, 57 Degnen, Cathrine, 37, 156 Deleuze, Gilles, 96, 120 Devereux, Paul, 75 dialogue, 138, 143 dissolution, 7–8, 36, 160, 176 Durham Cantor’s Book, 70, 102 dwelling, 9, 11–13, 19–20, 141, 143–47, 150–53, 156, 158, 166–68, 170–72, 174–75, 177–83, 185 dwell, 9, 15, 143–46, 151–52, 158, 171, 177, 180 the dwelling process, 19, 145, 147, 150, 153, 174–75, 180–81 dynamic, 4, 12, 18–19, 27, 52, 55, 58, 77, 83, 133–34, 157–58, 174–75, 179–80, 182, 185 Eade, John, 57–58 Easter, 70, 93–95, 97, 103, 110, 113–14 Dawn Liturgy, 93–94 Maundy Thursday, 93–94, 96, 114, 117, 119, 121 Stripping of the Altar, 93, 96, 114–15, 117, 119 Edensor, Tim, 90, 93, 156 Eiss, Paul K., 27 Eliade, Mircea, 110, 116–17, 120–21 embodiment, 15, 79–83, 97, 139, 175, 183 emergent, 4–5, 7, 9, 11–12, 16, 18–19,

Index • 199

26, 29, 38, 40, 43, 48, 72, 74–76, 79, 81–93, 102, 112, 120–21, 128, 132, 137, 146, 152, 155, 158, 168, 171, 174–75, 178–79, 182–84 engagement, 4, 7, 10–15, 17, 23, 25, 27, 29–31, 33–34, 43, 59, 66–69, 76–77, 79, 81, 83, 85, 87, 88–90, 98, 112, 131, 135, 144, 153, 156–57, 168, 173–75, 179, 185 English Civil War, 8, 150, 176 environment, 14–16, 18–19, 54, 72–73, 76, 78–79, 81, 84–85, 89–90, 92–93, 97, 133–34, 137–38, 143–44, 153, 166, 175, 181, 184 Ewart, Ian J., 133, 137 existential, 15, 45, 47–48, 80, 165, 174–75, 181 experience, 2, 10, 12, 14–16, 19, 27, 30, 33, 37, 45, 47, 57, 60, 73–74, 78–81, 84–85, 87–93, 97–98, 104–5, 110, 114, 119, 121, 127, 129, 131–35, 137, 139, 168–69, 175, 179–81, 184 experiment, 45, 48, 74, 125–26, 131, 137, 139, 174–75, 179 experimentation, 12, 40, 42, 47, 129, 134, 139, 144, 174–75, 184 faith, 26–27, 43, 46–48, 96 Foster, Sally, 7 Foucault, Michel, 13–14 heterotopia, 13–14 Free to Be, 88–90, 150 fuzzy, 57, 174–75, 184 fuzziness, 59–60, 180, 182, 184 Gallan, Ben, 86–87 Geertz, Clifford, 103 Gell, Alfred, 121 Genocchio, Benjamin, 14 Gibson, Christopher R., 87 Gibson, James J., 78 Giovannoni, Elena, 10 Gosden, Chris, 4 Grasseni, Cristina, 170 Greenwell, William, 128, 151 Grosz, Elizabeth, 120 Guattari, Félix, 96 Gudeman, Stephen, 37–38 Gutic, Jorge, 13

Hallam, Elizabeth, 16, 146, 156 Harry Potter, 51–52, 59 Hasse, Jürgen, 92 heating, 7, 16, 18, 65–66, 88, 150–53, 159–60, 172 Heidegger, 78, 145, 153, 158, 171, 177–78, 180–82 bauen, 145, 153 Dasein, 180 Fourfold, 177–80, 182–83 Gathering, 68, 114, 177–79, 182–83 locale, 177–79, 183 unfolding, 12–13, 153, 171, 174, 178–79, 182–84 Helms, Mary W., 117 heritage, 11–12, 19, 35–37, 39, 45, 52–55, 88, 160–61, 163–67, 169, 172, 174, 179, 181–83, 185–86 Hodder, Ian, 17 hospitality, 38, 55, 150, 164, 176 Hubert, Henri, 103, 105, 110, 113 Ihde, Don, 72, 78 improvisation, 16, 106, 129, 131–34, 136–39, 166, 171 Ingold, Tim, 14–16, 78, 92, 134, 144, 146 Irvine, Richard D., 7 Isambert, Francois-André, 113 Jackson, Michael J., 128 James, Wendy, 98, 105 Jones, Siân, 7, 10, 161, 168–70 Kearny, Richard, 15 Kharlamov, Nikita, 14 Kirchoff, Michael D., 78 Material Agency Thesis, 78, 80 Kiser, Brenda, 75 Kopytoff, Igor, 4 Koslofsky, Craig, 93 laboratory, 12–13, 40, 47, 74, 122, 128–29, 131, 134, 139, 143, 174, 179, 184 Lee, Lois, 42, 45, 48 Lefebvre, Henri, 47 LEGO, 11, 19, 31–32, 40–41, 44, 51, 57, 59, 129, 131–39, 153–58, 161, 163, 175, 180

200 • Index

LEGO (cont.) LEGO builder, 11, 131, 133–35, 137–39, 153 model, 8, 31–32, 44, 121, 131–32, 135, 137–38, 153–54, 156–58, 187 module(s), 40–41, 131–35, 137–38, 153–54, 157 Libellus de Exordio, 5, 36, 164, 177 Liddy, Christian Drummond, 6 life, 4, 7, 11–12, 14–20, 23–24, 27–29, 31, 37–38, 44, 47–48, 51, 53, 56, 59, 63, 66, 68, 70, 72, 81–82, 91, 93, 95, 97, 99, 102–6, 108, 110, 117, 119–20, 125, 127, 140, 143, 146–47, 153, 156, 163–66, 168, 170–71, 173, 179–86 living, 6, 8, 12, 15, 19, 23, 42, 48, 63, 119, 126, 128, 152–53, 160–61, 163–64, 169, 179–80, 186 light, 2, 19, 32–33, 39, 43, 57, 72–74, 84–85, 87–97, 103, 112, 114–16, 154, 164, 172, 174–75, 180 artificial, 84, 90 illuminate, 2, 4 13, 79, 84–85, 88–89, 91–95, 131, 181 metaphor, 91, 93, 95–96 shadow, 85, 87–91, 94, 103, 115 locus, 15, 47, 155 Lowenthal, David, 165 Lubman, David, 75 Lumiere, 55, 131, 133–34 Malafouris, Lambros, 81 Marshall, Yvonne, 4 mason, 10, 76, 126–29, 137, 140–41, 143, 150, 153, 155, 158–60, 165, 170–71, 179–80, 187 material, 20, 27, 45, 78–81, 83, 90, 138, 143, 146, 153, 156–57, 160, 167–68, 173, 179, 182–85 material agency, 81, 83 meaning, 4, 12–15, 19, 27, 31, 37, 45, 47, 58, 67, 69, 70, 72, 79, 96, 112, 133, 144–45, 147, 156, 158, 166–67, 174–75, 182, 184–85 meaningfulness, 102, 112, 167, 181, 185 memory, 1, 33, 35–37, 45, 59, 89, 97, 119, 144, 153–58, 175, 180, 183–84 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice, 14–15 Metcalf, Priscilla, 2

Mills, David, 98, 105 monastery, 7–8, 36, 102–3, 117–18, 128, 151, 160, 176–77 monks, 5–8, 17–18, 31, 35–36, 46, 54–55, 66–70, 73–75, 81–82, 89, 111, 114, 118, 128, 131, 147, 150–52, 155, 160, 164, 167–68, 177, 184, 187 mood, 70–72, 84–85, 94 Morgan, David, 44–45 Munn, Nancy, 110, 112, 120–21 narrative, 18, 34–36, 45, 56, 118, 127, 153, 155–56, 166, 180 stories, 4, 6–7, 36, 40, 46, 85, 127, 153–54, 156–58, 162, 165, 175, 180, 183 story, 1, 4–6, 35, 53, 96–97, 147, 153, 155, 171, 178, 186 nave, 1–2, 7, 16–17, 24, 42, 46 59, 64–66, 71, 74–78, 84, 88–89, 93–95, 98, 106–7, 109–13, 115–18, 125–26, 131–32, 137, 151, 154, 164, 176, 183, 187 negotiation, 4, 10, 12, 16–19, 25, 27, 38, 40, 44–46, 49, 55, 58, 77, 98, 103–7, 110, 113, 121–22, 134–35, 138–39, 143–44, 155, 160, 162–64, 166, 168–71, 175, 179 Norberg-Schulz, Christian, 181 Northern Saints, 35–36, 46, 102, 106 Notre-Dame de Paris, 10, 181–82 O’Connor, Michael, 10 Open Treasure Project, 31, 44, 54, 106, 165, 167, 170–71, 183, 187 organism, 12, 20, 47, 78, 153, 179–80, 184 Palisca, Claude V., 76 Pallasmaa, Juhani, 15–16, 73, 77–78, 80, 90–91, 181 Pedersen, David, 27 permanence, 160, 172 Pevsner, Nikolaus, 2 phenomenology, 14–15, 81 pilgrimage, 19, 28, 51, 56–59, 155, 174 pilgrim, 7, 11, 19, 50–51, 55–60, 174 Pina-Cabral, João de, 40, 42 Pine, Frances, 40, 42 place, 2, 5–7, 9–18, 25–26, 29, 34, 37,

Index • 201

39–41, 43–48, 51–54, 56–58, 63, 66, 68, 82, 85, 88, 94, 99, 105–7, 109, 111–13, 116, 188–19, 122, 125, 128, 131, 135–37, 141, 144, 147, 150–52, 154–57, 159, 162–66, 173–74, 176–79, 181–85, 187 sense of, 33–34, 177–78, 184 spirit of, 182–84 Platten, Stephen, 43, 179 psalm(s), 66–68, 70–72, 79, 95, 103, 115, 119 Quattrone, Paolo, 10 quire, 9, 64–65, 67–68, 70–71, 74–76, 79–80, 88–89, 93–96, 104, 110–11, 115, 117–18, 134, 137, 176 Rapport, Nigel, 165, 172 Rasmussen, Steen Eiler, 74, 81, 83, 181 reading, 28, 66–67, 69–70, 72, 75, 114–15, 119, 127 aloud, 28, 69–70, 79 Reformation, 8, 151, 164 relationship, 4, 12, 15–16, 19, 25, 31, 38, 42–43, 48, 66, 69, 73–74, 76–83, 85, 90, 92, 97, 112, 125, 144, 146–47, 152–53, 157, 58, 162–63, 165, 171–72, 174–77, 183, 185 religion, 2, 5–6, 8–9, 11, 16–17, 19, 25, 35, 39–53, 55–59, 65, 70–71, 93, 103, 108, 113–14, 116–17, 119–21, 163–64, 174, 176, 179–82, 185 in the margins, 40, 70, 102 vicarious, 42–43 Rennie, Bryan S., 120–21 Rites of Durham, 68–69, 74, 114, 118, 151 Judas Cup, 93, 114–15, 118–19 Roseman, Sharon R., 56 Ruskin, John, 7 sacred, 13, 16, 27, 42, 46, 58, 66, 69, 73, 88, 90, 96, 110–13, 116–21 Sallnow, Michael J., 58 Seamon, David, 15, 33 secular, 5–6, 8–9, 19, 27, 40, 42, 45–46, 48, 57–58, 111 post-secular, 42, 48 secularization, 42 secularism, 40, 42

services, 7, 11, 19, 23, 25, 28–29, 31–32, 34–35, 39–41, 43, 45, 52, 55, 65–68, 70–72, 74, 76–78, 87, 93–99, 102, 104–6, 108–11, 112–19, 121, 152, 160, 163–64, 172, 180, 183–84, 187 Evensong, 39, 47, 59, 65–66, 68–72, 104, 109–10, 112–13, 161 Morning Prayer, 39, 59, 64–65, 67, 71, 109–10 Offices, 6, 11, 17, 24–26, 36, 51–52, 66–71, 74, 76, 81, 88, 109, 111, 135, 140, 144, 151, 161 Settings (musical), 16, 26, 31, 42, 46, 67, 70–72, 81, 104, 113, 128 Shackley, Myra, 11, 13 shape, 7, 16, 38–40, 58, 60, 72, 74, 85, 87, 91, 93, 96 98–99, 126, 129, 133, 136, 147, 157, 170, 174, 180 shrine, 35–36, 39, 58, 66, 163–64, 177 singing, 26, 38, 47, 66, 71–72, 74, 76–77, 79–83, 87, 175 Smith, Norman, 10 Soja, Edward, 13 Somers, Margaret R., 36 Sorrell, Katherine, 90 sound, 19, 47, 63–67, 69–83, 91–92, 96–97, 103–4, 110, 112, 116, 159, 172, 175, 182 reverberation, 2, 74–75, 77, 81, 83 Sørensen, Tim Flohr, 90 space, 2, 9, 13–14, 16–17, 19, 25, 27, 30–31, 34–35, 37, 39–40, 42–43, 45–48, 54, 56, 58–59, 65, 68, 73–74, 77–78, 81–82, 84–85, 87–92, 95–99, 103, 105, 107, 109–15, 117–22, 125–27, 144, 150–51, 156, 160, 163–67, 170, 172, 174–75, 177–80, 184–87 spaces, 10–14, 16–17, 37, 40, 42–44, 48, 54, 66, 73, 75, 78, 82, 85, 87, 90, 92, 113, 137, 150, 153, 157, 163, 165, 168, 172, 175, 177, 179, 183–84 spacetime, 96, 112–13, 121 spatiotemporal, 96, 106, 111–12, 120 staff, 25–26, 29, 57, 168 St Cuthbert, 5–6, 18, 35–36, 46, 51–52, 58–59, 65–66, 70, 76, 82, 102, 104–5, 107, 110, 137, 155, 163–64, 177 Stirling Castle, 168–69

202 • Index

Stoller, Paul, 73, 91 symbiotic, 12–13, 15, 20, 66, 74, 76, 82–83, 144, 153, 172, 174, 176–77, 179–80, 183, 185 Symeon of Durham, 5–6, 36, 128, 134, 164–66, 177 system(s), 7, 14, 27, 53, 65–66, 74, 78, 85, 91, 107, 110–13, 129, 131, 150–53, 159–60, 172, 179 tacit, 44, 68, 81, 129, 134, 139, 175 Tanizaki, Jun’ichirō, 85, 90–91 tension, 14, 30–31, 34, 36, 44, 55, 58–59, 68, 73, 83, 98, 103–6, 108–10, 113, 122, 132–33, 157, 160, 162–63, 167–68 Theodossopoulos, Dimitrios, 167 Tilley, Christopher, 127 time, 1–2, 4–8, 11–12, 14, 16–17, 19, 23, 25–29, 31–32, 34, 37, 39–40, 43–50, 52, 54–56, 58, 65–69, 74, 76, 82, 87–88, 95–96, 98–99, 103–22, 126–27, 129, 131, 133, 135, 137, 143–47, 150–52, 154, 157, 160–65, 169–75, 178–85 historical, 103 homogeneous, 33, 103–4, 120 manifold, 60, 111, 184 profane, 56, 110–11, 113 quality, 10, 69, 103–8, 110, 112–13, 120, 179, 183 religious, 103 rhythm, 28, 39, 64, 75–77, 98–99, 102–11, 113, 121, 127, 190

tourism, 11, 19, 51–52, 55–56, 111, 163, 165, 179 tourists, 11–12, 16, 50–52, 54–57, 59, 64, 98, 105, 108, 111, 113, 118, 121, 144, 154, 160, 164, 166, 174 Tunstall, Elizabeth, 27 Turnbull, David, 128–29, 136, 139 handmade world, 155 manipulable systems, 129 templates, 19, 69–70, 89, 129, 131–37, 139, 179 value, 4, 18–20, 26–27, 33–34, 38, 54, 117, 161, 163, 182 Venerable Bede, 28, 30, 35, 39, 46, 51–52, 163, 165 Voase, Richard, 10 volunteering, 25–28, 30–32, 40–41, 43–44, 46, 48, 50, 57, 59, 64, 105–7, 126, 128, 131–33, 135, 137–38, 144, 146, 153–54, 158, 161 Waddy, Patricia, 43, 72 Wijesuriya, Gamini, 164 William de St Calais, 5–6, 36, 164 Willis, Ken G., 54 Wood, Alexander, 75 World Heritage Site, 52, 88, 161–63, 169 Unesco, 161–63 Yarrow, Thomas, 10, 161, 167–70 Zuckerkandl, Viktor, 72–73