Cathédrale de Winchester - Hants (Angleterre)

(Winchester Cathedral - Hants)

Gravure publiée dans The Beauties of England and Wales, 1807.

The Beauties of England and Wales , Auteur: Britton, John & Edward Wedlake Brayley - Ce livre fut publié en 18 volumes de 1801 à 1815.

Winchester Cathedral at Winchester in Hampshire is one of the largest cathedrals in England, with the longest nave and overall length of any Gothic cathedral in Europe. It is dedicated to the Holy Trinity, Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Swithun and is the seat of the Bishop of Winchester and centre of the Diocese of Winchester.

The cathedral was originally founded in 642 on an immediately adjoining site to the north. This building was known as the Old Minster. It became part of a monastic settlement in 971. Saint Swithun was buried near the Old Minster and then in it, before being moved to the new Norman cathedral. Mortuary chests said to contain the remains of Saxon kings such as King Edwy of England and his wife Queen Elgiva, first buried in the Old Minster, are also housed in the present cathedral. The Old Minster was demolished in 1093.

The construction of the cathedral began in 1079 under bishop Walkelin.

The earliest part of the present building is the crypt, which dates from that time. William II of England (son of William I 'the Conqueror') was buried in the cathedral on 11 August 1100, after he was killed in a hunting accident in the nearby New Forest. The squat, square central tower was begun in 1202 to replace an earlier version which collapsed, partly due to the unstable ground on which the cathedral is built. It has an indisputably Norman look to it. Work continued on the cathedral during the 14th century, in 1394 the remodelling of the Norman nave commenced to the designs of master mason William Wynford, this continued into the 15th and 16th centuries, notably with the building of the retrochoir to accommodate the many pilgrims to the shrine of Saint Swithun. The Benedictine foundation, the Priory of Saint Swithun, was dissolved in 1539. The cloister and chapter house were demolished, but the cathedral continued.

Restoration work was carried out by T.G. Jackson during the years 1905–1912, including the famous saving of the building from total collapse.

Important events took place in Winchester cathedral : Coronation of Henry the Young King and his queen, Marguerite (1172) - Second coronation of Richard I of England (1194) - Marriage of King Henry IV of England and Joanna of Navarre (1403) - Marriage of Queen Mary I of England and King Philip II of Spain (1554) - Funeral and burial of Jane Austen (1817).

In the south transept there is a "Fishermen's Chapel," which is the burial place of Izaak Walton. Walton, who died in 1683, was the author of The Compleat Angler and a friend of John Donne. In the choir is the bell from HMS Iron Duke which was the flagship of Admiral John Jellicoe at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.

The Epiphany Chapel has a series of Pre-Raphaelite stained glass windows designed by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones and made in William Morris's workshop. The foliage decoration above and below each pictorial panel is unmistakably William Morris and at least one of the figures bears a striking resemblance to Morris's wife Jane, who frequently posed for Dante Gabriel Rossetti and other members of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.

The crypt, which frequently floods, features a statue by Antony Gormley, called "Sound II", installed in 1986, and there is a modern shrine to Saint Swithun.

The cathedral also possesses the only diatonic ring of 14 church bells in the world, with a tenor (heaviest bell).