Guildford Cathedral

The Cathedral Church of the Holy Spirit, Guildford is the Anglican cathedral at Guildford, Surrey, England, designed by Sir Edward Maufe built between 1936 and 1961 and is the seat of the Diocese of Guildford.

Construction

Guildford was made a diocese in 1927, covering most of Surrey. Work on its consequent cathedral to be a lead centre of worship and community events venue began nine years later. The diocese chose Sir Edward Maufe as its architect and the foundation stone was laid by Dr Cosmo Gordon Lang, Archbishop of Canterbury in 1936. Construction was intended to be over many years to raise further funds, to achieve great height by incorporating exceptionally large arches and blocks of angular stone overlaid with brickwork and was suspended during Second World War — the building could not be consecrated until 17 May 1961. In the meanwhile Guildford's restored medieval Holy Trinity Church served as pro-cathedral. In 1952 Walter Boulton, who had ministered mostly in India, was made provost (head priest at the pro-cathedral and pastor of the parish), and revitalized the fund-raising for the new cathedral. When it was completed sufficiently for public worship, another cleric was chosen as first dean of the cathedral by the bishop, after consulting with various benefactors and influential clergy within Anglicanism.

Guildford

Coordinates: 51°14′11″N 0°34′13″W / 51.2365°N 0.5703°W / 51.2365; -0.5703

Guildford ⁱ/ˈɡɪlfərd/ is the historic county town of Surrey, England and the seat of the borough of Guildford. The town is 27 miles (43 km) southwest of central London on the A3 trunk road mid-way between the capital and Portsmouth.

Guildford has Saxon roots and historians attribute its location to the existence of a gap in the North Downs where the River Wey was forded by the Harrow Way By AD 978 it was home to an early English Royal Mint. On the building of the Wey Navigation and Basingstoke Canal Guildford was connected to a network of waterways that aided its prosperity. In the 20th century, the University of Surrey and Guildford Cathedral, an Anglican cathedral, were added.

Due to recent development running north from Guildford, and linking to the Woking area, Guildford now officially forms the southwestern tip of the Greater London Built-up Area, as defined by the Office for National Statistics.

History

Barry Rose

Barry Michael Rose OBE (born 24 May 1934) is a choir trainer and organist. He is best known for conducting the choir of St Paul's Cathedral at the wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales and Diana, Princess of Wales formerly Lady Diana Frances Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral in London on 29 July 1981.

Biography

Born in Chingford, England, Rose grew up playing hymns on the piano at his local Sunday school, and later accompanying the choir on the harmonium at the mission church of St Anne's Chingford Hatch. Leaving the Sir George Monoux Grammar School, Walthamstow, at the age of 16, he set out on a career in commerce, working in the insurance departments of W. H. Smith & Son Ltd. and Joseph Rank Ltd. In 1956 he joined Martindale Sidwell's choir at Hampstead Parish Church as a bass, going on from there two years later to become organist and choirmaster at St Andrew's Church, Kingsbury, North West London. It was while he was at Kingsbury that he decided to leave the world of commerce, and despite not having any of the required qualifications for entry, the principal (Sir Thomas Armstrong) offered him a place at London's Royal Academy of Music to study organ with C. H. Trevor. In April 1960, whilst still an unqualified academy student, at the age of 25 he became the youngest cathedral organist in the country when he was appointed as the first Organist & Master of the Choristers at the new Guildford Cathedral. At Guildford he founded a choir to sing the daily services, their first public appearance being the service of consecration on 17 May 1961 in the presence of the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and other members of the royal family.

Cathedral

A cathedral (French: cathédrale from Latin: cathedra, "seat" from the Greek kathedra (καθέδρα), seat, bench, from kata "down" + hedra seat, base, chair) is a Christian church which contains the seat of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. The counterpart term for such a church in German is Dom from Latin domus ecclesiae or domus episcopalis; also Italian Duomo, Dutch Domkerk and cognates in many other European languages. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations with an episcopal hierarchy, such as the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox, and some Lutheran and Methodist churches. Church buildings embodying the functions of a cathedral first appear in Italy, Gaul, Spain and North Africa in the 4th century, but cathedrals did not become universal within the Western Catholic Church until the 12th century, by which time they had developed architectural forms, institutional structures and legal identities distinct from parish churches, monastic churches and episcopal residences.

North Downs

The North Downs are a ridge of chalk hills in south east England that stretch from Farnham in Surrey to the White Cliffs of Dover in Kent.Westerham Heights, at the northern edge of the North Downs, near Bromley, South London, is the highest point in London at an elevation of 245 metres. The North Downs lie within two Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs), the Surrey Hills and the Kent Downs. The North Downs Way National Trail runs along the North Downs from Farnham to Dover.

Etymology

'Downs' is from Old English dun meaning, amongst other things, 'hill'. The word acquired the sense of 'elevated rolling grassland' around the fourteenth century. These hills are prefixed 'north' to distinguish them from the morphologically similar range of hills - the South Downs - which run roughly parallel to them but some 50 km (31 mi) to the south.

Geography

The narrow spine of the Hog's Back between Farnham and Guildford forms the western extremity of the North Downs, whilst the cliffs between Folkestone and Deal terminate the ridge in the east. There are two distinct aspects, the steep south-facing escarpment and the gentle north-facing dip slope. The southern boundary is defined by the foot of the escarpment which gives way to the flat, broad clay lands between the Downs and Greensand Ridge known as the Vale of Holmesdale. The northern boundary is less apparent but occurs where the chalk submerges below the more recent Paleocene deposits.