Welcome to Christ Church Cathedral’s ‘How Did They Do That?’ Family Trail Christ Church has teamed up with local makers to create a fascinang self-guided trail which explores the huge amount of work and the many materials and methods that were used to create the Cathedral building and its priceless collecon of artefacts. Ever wondered how to make stone look like fur, how to carve wood or the secret to making coloured glass? Here’s your chance to find out, with help from the ex- perts. You can follow this trail in any order you like around the Cathedral. Direcons to each object can be found at the start of each secon.
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Welcome to hrist hurch athedral’s ‘How Did They Do That ......Welcome to hrist hurch athedral’s ‘How Did They Do That?’ Family Trail hrist hurch has teamed up with local
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Transcript
Welcome to Christ Church Cathedral’s
‘How Did They Do That?’ Family Trail
Christ Church has teamed up with local makers to create
a fascinating self-guided trail which explores the huge
amount of work and the many materials and methods
that were used to create the Cathedral building and its
priceless collection of artefacts.
Ever wondered how to make stone look like fur, how to
carve wood or the secret to making coloured glass?
Here’s your chance to find out, with help from the ex-
perts.
You can follow this trail in any order you like around the
Cathedral. Directions to each object can be found at the
start of each section.
Entrance
Crypt
Entrance
Baptistery
Quire
Welcome
Desk
Where to find
things...
North
Transept
Carved pulpit
South
Transept
Strongbow’s
Tomb
Chapel
of St
Laud
Stained Glass Windows
These can be found all over the Cathedral — just look up!
Stained glass windows tell stories. They were originally used to teach people who couldn’t read
about the Bible. With sunlight shining through them, casting bright colours around the Cathedral,
they provided quite a show. Almost like an early form of cinema, before films were even thought
This can be found all over the Cathedral — the walls themselves
are built of stone!
Around 1200 when work began on Christ Church, and during several stages of later development and repair - the main building
material was .... STONE. Concrete which is a modern material had not been invented - nor any other fancy modern materials.
All the better for Christ Church as natural stone is very beautiful and lasts a long time
“Written in stone” - is a saying that means that it will be there forever
some decorative work on the capitals / arches
carved pulpit made of Mansfield
stone
HOW HEAVY would this piece of stone
be ????
1 piece of Mansfield stone measuring 1 me-
ter x 1 meter x 1 meter would weigh about
2,250 kg - { 2 - 3 tonnes }
That is about the weight of 70 children
around the age of 10!
EVERY STONE IS DIFFERENT
All stone is old - VERY OLD - it was formed when the earth first came into existence. A person who stud-
ies stone is a Geologist
Stone masons and stone carvers learnt to tell what was good about some stone - they needed stone that
did not break off in big chunks as they needed to control what they did. They didn’t want big cracks !! So
not all stone is good for carving.
Each stone has a different colour. How many colour stones can you spot in the Cathedral ??
Kilkenny Marble
Grey limestone
Caen Stone
from Normandy
Carrera Marble
from Italy
Cork Marble Dundry
Stone
Portland Stone
When the Cathedral was being built there
were no trucks no cranes, and no engines of
any type - so ALL this stone got here by using
horses , carts , ropes ,and pulley systems.
Wow!
And all the more wow was that much of it
came from England and other parts of Europe
so had to go on a boat first - a very strong
boat that would not sink. with the weight of
the stone.
The craftsmen have put their own designs on the stone , but if you
look closely you may see designs within the stone , like fossils and
marble lines ....
Feel the stone around the church and write down things you notice about the tex-
ture ,the colour, patterns etc.
TEXTURE:
Colour:
Fossils and Patterns:
HOW DID THEY DO IT ??
Humans could only carve stone once they had learnt how to make metal chisels . So when the cathedral was built, wherever there were men { yes it was just men in those days ! } carving stone there were also blacksmiths. They made the chisels and sharpened them, as well as making the horseshoes for the horses who moved all the stone around.
A stone carver starts with a large chunk of stone and begins to take away the parts he does not want using a point chisel. By hitting this chisel with a lump hammer he shocks away a part of the stone. He does this again and again and again. The skill is in knowing where to take the stone away and when to stop!
The tooth chisel is then used to even out the bumpy surface he has just created and a flat chisel to give a smoother finish. Then the painstaking process of sanding begins . Special rough stones that are abrasive { scratchy }, sandpaper and metal files are all used to smooth the stone down.
o had to move all the stone around.
THE STONE TRAIL
The Cathedral is built of stone - which is amazing in itself. Just stand in the cathedral and think about the time, sweat and tears that all the men { yes men again } used to get those heavy blocks right up to the top.
Now have a look around the Cathedral and see if you can spot the following:
1 - Capitals in the North Transept - fancy decorative stone work at the top of the arches
featuring animals, flowers and people. Some of these are the original medieval capitals.
2 - Baptistery font - look at the beautiful stone ‘intarsia’ work { inlaying of different stones
into each other }. How many kinds of marble can you find?
3 - Monument to the 19th Earl of Kildare in the South Transept - sculpted by Henry
Cheere in 1746. It was said to be his best work, largely because of its incredible textures
and details {look for the fur and wrinkled stockings...}
4- Strongbow’s tomb - carved in Kilkenny limestone
5 - Funerary monuments down in the Crypt - can you find the rather grumpy looking Lord
Bowes? This monument was once 5 metres high and stood upstairs. It is made of Carra-
ra and Kilkenny marble. Lord Bowe’s portrait was said to look very like him and the
sculptor John van Nost was paid the huge sum of £500 for it in the late 1760s.
These can be found in the Chapel of St Laud. Later reproductions can be
found all over the Cathedral - just look at your feet!
There are two types of tiles on the cathedral floor, the original 13th century
tiles and reproductions made in the 19th century. In 1562, when the roof of the Cathedral fell in,
lots of the medieval tiles were broken. Those that survived were re-laid in the chapel of St Laud. New ones
were made to replace them from the original designs. Can you tell the difference between the two?
Here is how the red and white medieval tiles were made….
Clay was dug from the ground – it was often found in fields or river banks. Different areas gave up different coloured clays. Once dug, the clay was transported either by wheelbar-row or cart and stored in the shade outside the potter’s work-shop for about a year, to weath-er. This made the clay easier to work.
The clay was wedged (kneaded, to remove the air). Sometimes sand was mixed into the clay. This helped to stop the tiles bending or warping as they dried. Once prepared, the soft clay was shaped into a ball and then thrown into a square wood-en frame or mould.
Extra clay was cut off with a thin wire. The tile was left to stiffen in the wooden mould until it was firm but not completely dry.
The moulds were probably laid on the ground to dry, as paw and hoof marks are sometimes found pressed into medieval tiles. Christ Church is said to have its very own 13th cen-tury bird claw-print! Can you find it?
When the tile was almost dry, a wooden stamp was pressed into the tile surface and sometimes patterns were cut out with a knife.
The inlaid marks were then filled with a liquid white clay, called slip. This was left to dry until it was as firm as the rest of the tile. The surface was then carefully scraped back to reveal the con-trasting white pattern in the red clay.
The inlaid marks were then filled with a liq-uid white clay, called slip. This was left to dry until it was as firm as the rest of the tile. The surface was then carefully scraped back to reveal the contrasting white pattern in the red clay.
The tiles were dried under cover in buildings with open sides for air to circulate and turned every day to ensure they dried evenly. As the clay dried, it shrank away from the wooden frame. The frames were then removed.
After about a week of drying, the tiles would be covered in a dusting of powdered lead and placed on shelves in a kiln. This glaze caused the white clay to appear yellowish when melted onto the tile surface.
Medieval tile kiln showing floor and wall thickness.
The kiln walls were made from large stones bound together with clay. Small spyholes were left in the walls to view inside the kiln during firing.
The kiln was heated with wood. This took several days. Once the glaze became shiny inside the red-hot kiln, all the fire boxes beneath the kiln would be closed up to stop cold air getting in and the kiln left to cool down slowly. After a few days, the kiln was opened and the tiles removed, ready to be laid as a floor.
Can you find all the
different animals de-picted in the tiles?
Here are just a few...lions, birds and
foxes dressed as fri-ars. You’ll only find
the foxes in Christ Church. (Medieval
people thought it was very funny to dress
animals as humans!) Contribution by glass and ceramic artist Michael Ray
www.glitteringglass.com
Books
A selection of old books from the Cathedral Archives can be found
down in the Crypt
Before the invention of PAPER, many ancient civilisations were using a rich variety of materi-
als on which to write: they engraved stone or metal, stamped clay surfaces or carved onto
bark stripped from trees to make their mark. They also stretched animal skin to make PARCH-
MENT. Many of Christ Church’s earliest books, including the famous Liber Niger (Black Book)
are written on parchment. Later books were written on handmade PAPER.
Parchment
Parchment is a general term for an animal skin which has been pre-
pared for writing or printing. Parchment has been made for centuries,
and is usually calf, goat, or sheep skin. VELLUM - from the French
`veau` - refers to a parchment made from calf skin.
Parchment was invented in Asia in around 1500BC and was widely used in
Europe until the sixteenth century. Although methods of PAPERMAK-
ING had reached parts of Europe by the 13th century, most medieval
manuscripts were still written on parchment.
PAPER – Where does it come from?
The Beginnings of Paper Making
The earliest records of PAPER are from China, 105AD. The Chinese had al-
ready been using felted off-cuts of silk as a painting surface. This practice led
to the use of plant leaves and bark to make strong, fibrous pulps.