When I last wrote you, I was on the precipice of a week of singing daily evensong services with the choir of All Saints’ Beverly Hills, first in Worcester, then in Tewkesbury. Now, that eventful week has passed, and I write to you from the other side of Southern England, in Canterbury, Kent.
This trip to England is my second such pilgrimage, though all the venues are new to me. Now, as before, the immense privilege of being the singer-in-residence sort of pilgrim is that you’re showing up to help run the place, and thus inspire awe even as you are awed.
Both Worcester Cathedral and Tewkesbury Abbey are tangible documents of British history. Both sites originate in a time when monasteries were relatively new, grew through the centuries, only to be partly demolished when Henry VIII declared himself head of the Church of England, partly spared by some fated intervention, defaced and plastered over as mandated by the Reformation, beautified in the centuries to follow, and even recently still revealing new secrets to be unearthed and preserved.
There, in a (very long) sentence, is the story we’ve been surrounded by for the past nine days. A visit to one of these places is worth the trip. A well-guided tour (we’ve had wonderful guides) is jaw-dropping. To have our psalm chants echo over the bones of King John (d. 1216) and Prince Arthur (d. 1502), alongside the congregations of the living, is sublime. And, on top of all that, to enter the places giggling, swinging our robes over our shoulders, rushing to back rooms to dress and rehearse and be served tea and biscuits — in short, simply to exist in such spaces as if it were something normal — is mind-bending.
On top of our singing duties, we’ve been offered opportunities to take various tours and day trips. Though it more or less decimated my fantasy of unscheduled mornings spent in meditation, writing, and peaceful reflection, I have happily taken every opportunity offered. They keep being so much more than I’d imagined or expected, so I keep saying yes.
For example, a tour of the Worcester Cathedral’s “music library.” I pictured a florescent-lit extension of the practice room that housed an impressive collection of Elgar scores1. Instead, we were led up a tightly-wound stone staircase to a tower library which housed countless medieval manuscripts, musical and otherwise. Hand-written books of monks’ daily chants; elaborately illustrated 14th-century textbooks; a first edition of Handel’s Messiah; pages and scraps of paper from as far back as the Third Century. We watched in shock as the librarian touched these books with his actual human hands* , only to be given special dispensation at the end of the tour to turn the pages of the 500-year-old music books ourselves, if we wished.
A group took a trip to a historic (but still operational) almshouse in Malvern, the Beauchamp Community.2 The pitch had been a look at the Archive of Recorded Church Music, of which our guide there was the archivist. In reality, we got no such look. Instead, the archivist welcomed up by saying that we’d be given a walk around the grounds, which would prepare us for what we’d see inside the parish chapel, St. Leonard’s, our final stop. “When you see what’s inside there,” he told us, “you won’t believe your eyes.” Once we understood who built the community, when, and why, we were better prepared to be awed by the spectacle that was this hidden chapel, extravagantly painted from floor to ceiling with biblical stories and allegories — and a rare Grade I listing on the National Heritage List.
Now we have arrived in Canterbury, for week two of our trip. We are staying inside the walls of the Cathedral Close, and cathedral itself rises up behind the gates like something from a fantasy novel. When we first arrived, my room was not yet ready, so I decided to take a peek inside the cavernous holy building. This place is one of the most well-known pilgrim destinations, and we are not alone here — it’s swarming with people, who (unless they are attending a service) pay for the privilege of coming inside. As I approached the south entrance, I felt almost frightened. Like everyone here, I know that whatever I find inside, I have come a long way in search of it.
A few steps into the nave, the Beauchamp archivist’s welcome came back to me. Our time and tours through Worcester and Tewkesbury had well prepared us to appreciate the immensity of Canterbury, and all it must have taken — powers human and divine — to allow it to continue standing in this spot. In Worcester, we saw stone side-chapels where the faces of saints and apostles had been smashed away centuries ago. In Tewkesbury, our tour guide spoke repeatedly of the many “ghosts” visible outside the building — it took us a few repetitions to realize he was referring to the marks on the outside of the buildings where greater structures used to be attached. But here in Canterbury, there is so much church that it will not fit inside a camera’s lens, no matter how many times we try. And when we’re told that something was smashed away and later rebuilt in a new way, we understand why.
One last thing I feel I must add: All of this so far has been pretty grandiose. And sure, it’s a grandiose trip already, just two services into this new week of residency at the Mother Church, the Big Show. But it hasn’t all been grandiosity. I wrote the majority of these words in a pub just outside the busy part of Canterbury that surrounds the cathedral. After doing some shopping, I found that the zoo of shoppers and pilgrims had drained me, and I needed to get a little further away to escape. So I dragged myself toward a coffee shop I’d passed earlier in the day. I ended up next door to the coffee shop, at Two Sawyers. Writing with a pint of cider, I scooted down my bench to avoid the visible cloud of cigarette smoke wafting through the open patio door beside me. The bartender was a young, friendly fellow, and at a high top to my left, an elderly man sat with a half-empty glass of ale. “I didn’t think I was going to be able to get myself here today,” the older man said. And the young man replied,
“But you are here. It’s when you don’t show up that we’ll worry.”
Later on, as if to demonstrate his poor health, he crossed the bar to some unseen corner and hacked so long and hard that I wondered if I’d be seeing him leave the place on a stretcher.
At the risk of creeping back toward grandiosity, I can’t help but observe: this, too, is a part of the pilgrimage. Not just a visit to marvel at the past, but also a cultural immersion in the present. It would have been perfectly peaceful to stay in my room and write, drinking a cup of complimentary tea, curled up in my room’s precious window bench, gazing out at the gleaming majesty of Canterbury Cathedral. But who knows if the words ever would have come?
Edward Elgar grew up in Worcester and there’s a stained glass window dedicated to him in the cathedral, as well as a statue of him in the town square.
Pron. “Beecham”
I neglected to add the following links!
You can listen and watch our daily evensong services on the Canterbury Cathedral YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/live/u82R6LGQUJU?feature=share
And our Sunday morning service from Tewkesbury is here: https://www.youtube.com/live/GQXB7PXAe1M?feature=share