Alright! I know it's been a couple of days since I got here, but this is the first chance I've had to sit down and put up some pictures. I've enjoyed very stereotypical English weather since I've been here: foggy. Actually, it cleared up... and rained today :). When I landed the fog was so bad it caused massive flight delays and problems. Somehow my flight escaped and we actually came in on time. These shots are as bright as it has been the whole time.
Walking in the airport.
Driving down to Salisbury.
It took me a minute to figure out if my bath tub was a torture device or just quaint. The hotel is a very old building and I think my room is on floor 2 3/8ths. It's hard to tell. The hallways are windy and twisty and not level and go up and down short pieces of stairs. They're a little funny in other ways too: they offer free wifi but if you want to use the ancient lobby computer it's $1.50 for 20 minutes. No one can fault them on their breakfast though. It's fantastic! I've never seen such a spread in the US for the breakfast and the cooked to order items are amazing. So much so that I even took a picture of my eggs benedict:
I've spent this week at a place called Porton Down. It was originally built in 1916 as a range for chemical warfare testing. The Germans had started using chlorine gas as part of WWI and the British needed to understand what they were dealing with. It's probably the premier place in the world for doing open air testing and the land forms a little bowl that the wind circles around so that when they release chemical agents they don't get carried outside the valley.
The start of the range tour was funny because we were advised not to "cuddle" anything and then asked if any of us had brought any animals... specifically hamsters. No one with a weakened immune system or pregnancy was allowed on the range and we were advised to wash our hands immediately upon returning. We thought it was standard safety procedure until we noticed the driver washing the steering wheel about every 5 minutes. Needless to say we scrubbed up on returning...
The rest of the site was built up over time and I haven't been able to take any pictures because of restrictions, but I did get one of this atom trap:
Today we walked through a category 4 bio containment facility - they experiment with the types of viruses and bacteria for which there are no known cures. The animal testing setup was really interesting. The protective suits they use are built into the middle of the tables and are pressurized giving them a really funny look - I got to climb into one but they wouldn't let me take a picture :(.
Town we have been staying in is Salisbury and it dates back to the 1200s if I remember. The central feature of the city is St. Martin's cathedral. In England a city isn't determined by how many people live there, it is determined by whether or not it has a cathedral.
The gargoyles are particularly fun, as always.
This cathedral houses one of the four copies of the 1215 Magna Carta (the earliest version). It is also in the best condition. It must be so because it looks like someone made it yesterday and then tried to make it look old. The penmanship is so incredible it's hard to believe that it was written by a human hand. I tried to read it, then couldn't. Then remembered that it's written in Latin. Tried again, and gave up. They weren't allowing pictures of it either, but if you look to the left of the lady you can see it:
For my children, the Magna Carta was the first official document stating that people had rights not granted them by a King or other leader. It came about because King John (yes, the one from Robin Hood) was taxing people incredibly heavily to pay for a losing war against France. Eventually, everyone revolted against him and the Magna Carta was the result.
This is the world's oldest working clock. It rings a bell every hour, but otherwise there is no way to read out the time.
We took a tour all the way through the cathedral. This cathedral is unique because it was built in about 20-30 years, which is extremely fast. This meant that the entire cathedral of the same architectural style (early gothic), except for the spire which was added quite a bit later.
From 60 ft up.
Up another 60 feet looking out across the timber work between the ceiling and the roof. The entire structure is different types of limestone with lime mortar. Most of the wood is the original timber, which by now is as hard as iron the tour guide told us.
To cut the timbers it would take two men to feed it into the saw one sitting down in a pit of water and sawdust and the other above nice and dry. They were known as "doges" (pronounced dogs) - leading to the terms top dog, and underdog.
This is one of the few stained glass pieces left in the entire building - the rest are painted glass. The Puritans ripped out the stained glass when the Catholic Church was kicked out of England and replaced it. This is the shield representing the King of Enland. There were two more: 1 for France, and one unknown.
Going further up into the Cathedral. The guy on the left is my counterpart in England.
Some people felt they needed ear protection for the bells. They were wrong (mostly). To point that out I took a picture of them looking awkward.
More of the timber work supporting the roof. On the outside of this wood is lead shingles and that's it. The lead actually "flows" over time and it has to be re-rolled and placed back on the roof every 100 years or so.
The entire building is held together with wood pegs. When they built it they moved so fast that they used green wood so the pegs were wedge shaped. As the wood changed shape over time they pounded the pegs further in to tighten everything up.
Looking up into the spire. The spire was the part added later and the building wasn't designed for the weight so they had to add iron work to reinforce the building. The white bars are the midevil iron work and are claimed to be the best iron work ever from that time period. The large broad beams were put in by the Victorians to further strengthen the structure.
There's a lot of decorative work here because this part was visible as part of the chapel before the spire existed and used to hold stained glass windows.
The Victorian supports actually extend through the wall to anchor in plates on the outside of the building. The plates are painted to match the structure but once you know they are there, you can totally see them from the outside.
A better shot of the ironwork from above it.
Eventually, the bells did chime... not that loudly...
The bells. This is on the wooden platform that looked like the ceiling a couple of pictures ago. It is only a single layer of 1x4" boards and felt a little... um, well, it made me a little nervous :).
Looking out across the cathedral from the bell floor. You can see the lead shingles I was talking about.
We weren't done yet. After these stairs we were up about 220 ft with the very top of the spire still extending beyond us. The stairs were wound so tight that at the top of each flight I kept wanting to turn.
Looking up to the top of the Spire. They wouldn't let us finish the climb on the ladders. :(
Salisbury from the top of the Cathedral.
Ben... again.
Looking down you could see the reflection from the upper part of the building in the glass. Maybe a dumb picture, but I liked it.
What the stone stairs were like.
I called this the "chamber of jellyfish."
This is where the choir sits. There was also a "bumping stone" for "initiating new members of the choir." No further explanation...
