Salisbury Cathedral & Chapter House (Pt 2) - Nov 12

Once inside the Cathedral, I took a ton of photos. Here's just a few that are rather interesting.

The oldest clock in the world!!! This medieval clock dates from 1386. It was originally located in a separate bell tower (demolished in 1792) beside the Cathedral. The clock had no face, it simply struck the bell on the hour.

A regimental memorial to those who served in the Wiltshire Regiment (Wiltshire is the county that Salisbury is in).

There was lots of beautiful stained glass windows in the Cathedral - these were ones that I found particularly interesting

The Prisoner of Conscience Candle - the symbol of Amnesty International

The Chapter House itself was most impressive. For those that don't know, a chapter house is a meeting place for the cathedral clergy. This chapter house was also built in the 13th century with an octagonal structure. It was the kind of place that you walk into and just go "Wow" because it is so beautiful. Unfortunately, no cameras are allowed to be used because of the number of important historic documents housed there. The primary one is the best preserved of only 4 surviving original Magna Carta from 1215. It was definitely very cool to see such an important document - a bit awe inspiring. Although it was a fair size piece of animal hide that it was written on, there wasn't as much writing as you would think based on the English translation. I guess you can say a whole lot in not very much Latin writing!

The other part of the Chapter House that I most enjoyed was the medieval frieze which went all the way around the upper part of the walls. It was done in 1250, 60 stone bas reliefs depicting scenes from the first two books of the Bible, Genesis and Exodus. Since my biblical knowledge isn't that vast, it was nice to have a printed description of each. There was everything from the creation of the world, Adam and Eve, Noah's Ark, Cain murdering Abel, the Tower of Babel etc.