Durham Cathedral Climbing Great Buildings


Durham Cathedral

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Welcome to 11th century Britain.

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I'm hanging 140 feet up the side of Durham Cathedral,

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where - almost 1,000 years ago - medieval masons crafted a marvel in stone.

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And let me tell you, the view is terrifying.

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This is Climbing Great Buildings, and throughout this series,

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I'll be scaling iconic structures, from the Normans to the present day.

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Wahey!

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I'll be revealing the building secrets

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and telling the story of how British architecture and construction developed over 1,000 years.

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My journey begins here in the North East at Durham Cathedral,

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built from 1093 in the Norman, or known in the trade as the the Romanesque style.

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If you want to know about the rise of British architecture,

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there's no better place to start.

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In order to see all this, I need to get close up to places

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most of us never see when we visit these buildings.

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-Well done!

-Gosh, it's beautiful, though, look at it!

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Fortunately, I have a crack team to help.

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Lucy Creamer is one of Britain's top climbers.

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Oh, Jonathan, this is fantastic.

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Along with her team of riggers and all-action cameraman, Ian Burton,

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she will be helping me on my vertical adventures.

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Today, I'll scale the 70-foot north wall to have a close look at its 900-year-old stonework.

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Stone's in dreadful condition, some of these pieces.

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I'll get a unique view of its beautiful, vaulted ceiling.

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Oh, my lord, that is so high.

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And I'll conquer my fears to climb over 140 feet, to the top of the western tower.

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In 1093, when Durham Cathedral began to be built,

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England was experiencing the biggest building boom since the Romans had left.

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After the Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror asserted his power

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with a mixture of military might and great cathedrals,

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to show that God was on his side.

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Durham Castle was started by 1072, but it would be the cathedral that was the main event on this site.

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And the result was this, one of the great spaces of Europe.

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900 years on, this thing still has the power to take your breath away every time you walk in.

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It's technically brilliant, the space is thrilling.

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Imagine what the Anglo-Saxons thought.

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It would have knocked their sandals off!

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So, how did the Normans do it?

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Well, with some brilliant innovations which transformed architecture in Britain.

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And, as with any building, it all starts with the foundations.

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It's rather funny that the story of Durham starts in a little hole just off the north aisle.

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Thousands of people walk over it every year,

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but no-one gets inside.

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I am the exception.

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I'm descending 14 feet below the cathedral floor, to see what this vast structure rests upon.

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Look at this. It's like the Famous Five.

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These deep foundations enabled the cathedral to be built on a huge scale, to stand the test of time.

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The Normans conceived their buildings on massive foundations.

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They were prepared to dig right down to the bedrock.

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As they changed the whole scale of British buildings,

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the depth of their foundations had to follow suit.

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With foundations like these, it's no wonder

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they were able to construct immense stone walls,

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which form my next challenge.

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En-route to my first climb, I want to show you this, the north door.

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It dates to about 1140, and it features a perfect replica of the bronze Sanctuary knocker.

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So called because fugitives from the law could grab hold of it and claim immunity, at least for a time.

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They had 37 days to consider whether they wanted to stand trial or be deported.

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If they chose the latter, they would be taken to a port

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and stuck on a ship, no matter what it was going.

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It's time for my first climb.

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Now, I've never done anything like this before and I'm certainly not a climber,

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but the opportunity to see this cathedral from this perspective is the chance of a lifetime.

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-It's climb number one.

-Here we are.

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I'm all rigged up and excited.

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-Excited?

-Any last minute tips?

-Any nerves?

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A few, I've got to say, but it doesn't look that high from here.

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That's probably because I'm sitting down. That's what I'm used to.

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I'm climbing the north wall of the nave, which is the main body of the cathedral.

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-Right, let's go.

-OK.

-After you.

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Whoops! I think I might be flying into the wall fairly regularly.

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The walls are massive by any standards.

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At over 70 feet high, they're certainly imposing.

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How's it looking up there?

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It's very fragile, this building.

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So, what sort of age are we climbing on at the moment?

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How long's this been here?

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It was begun in 1093, but most of them have been rebuilt...

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throughout the Middle Ages.

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And Durham is the best survivor of the Norman cathedrals.

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So, by Norman, we're talking about the round arched tradition

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that goes up to the beginning of the 13th century, more or less.

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-Right.

-More or less.

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On the old side of old, then.

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A large team of native masons constructed these walls.

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They were led by a master mason, an individual who combined

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architectural vision with engineering expertise, and who produced the plans.

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It's probable that the Norman-French bishop imported a Norman-French master mason.

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But soon, Norman scale and techniques would be fully adopted by English builders.

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The stone used to build Durham Cathedral is local Coal Measures sandstone,

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which would have been brought, in blocks, along the River Wear

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to pretty much the foot of the cathedral.

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It's a pretty tortuous climb to get it up to this spot, it must they said.

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But then it was laid into walls two medieval yards thick - that's about 6'6".

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Now there are no building accounts left to tell us exactly how this was done,

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but one person did have the foresight to write something down.

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A diary written by a monk called Simeon in 1093

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is the only remaining record of the construction of Durham Cathedral.

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Simeon of Durham was a historian of Durham,

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a member of Durham Cathedral Priory at the beginning of the 12th Century.

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He was an eyewitness to the digging of the foundations and his account here -

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written at the beginning of the 12th Century -

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is the earliest and most authoritative account we have of those events.

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He gives us the date - 1093.

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And he explains that the bishop himself,

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along with the rest of the brothers,

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placed the first stones of the foundation.

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This is a remarkable contemporary account of the events in question.

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And remarkable, too, because we know that the person writing it

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was there from the beginning of the process that he's describing here.

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At this stage of my first climb, we're now halfway up the north wall

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and the challenge that must have faced the medieval masons is becoming increasingly obvious.

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So, we've managed to ascend our way up here relatively easily,

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but what I don't understand

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is how did they get the stone blocks up here and into position?

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Yeah, now, that's clever.

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We know that medieval masons cut blocks at the quarry,

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because there's no point in carting waste material.

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So these blocks arrived at a jetty on the river,

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would be brought up to the site, presumably by cart.

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And then, there would be a timber scaffold up here.

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And very often you find replacement stones which have gone in where the timber scaffolding was taken out.

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They're called putlog holes.

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Now, to get them up on the scaffold,

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you're talking about a wheel - a pulley system -

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and some medieval cathedral towers still have giant hamster wheels,

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where men walked round and pulled them up. So, it's pretty clever.

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I've noticed something here, Jonathan.

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I don't know if you can see, but it looks kind of like mother-of-pearl, or something.

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That's exactly what it is. Oyster shells.

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It's like medieval crisp packets!

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They ate so many oysters, they just chucked the shells away.

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But they were useful to masons because -

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when you're laying one block of stone on another -

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with wet mortar between them, you're going to squeeze that mortar out,

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so you put oyster shells in, which is calcium carbonate -

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the same material as the lime - the lime sets around it

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and those domes actually support blocks of stone.

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Really useful to a mason.

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Wow!

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Today, modern quarrying techniques and cement mixers

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mean we are easily able to churn out vast quantities of cement each day,

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but in medieval Britain, making mortar was hot, sweaty and dangerous.

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First, they would have fired limestone to around 800 degrees in a kiln,

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before it was mixed with sand and water.

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That's hissing and fizzing.

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-You see, this is proper alchemy.

-Is that steam coming off it?

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It's getting the heat now, that's why it's a hot lime mix.

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-That's a strong chemical reaction, isn't it?

-Oh, God, yes.

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So, people in the Middle Ages using this stuff without goggles and...

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It's quite easy to do a lot of damage to your eyes.

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What about getting it on your skin?

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Yeah, it takes your fingerprints off.

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I haven't got any fingerprints on my hands any more.

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-Have you not, really?

-No.

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You can just see this has turned into a lovely mortar now.

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Feel the heat coming off that.

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It's very warm. It's like something a cow's just produced.

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As well, with the heat, it sticks very well to the stone

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and forms an excellent bond with the pores in the stone.

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Gosh! The stone's in dreadful condition in some of these places.

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The thing about this local sandstone is, it's very soft and crumbly.

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You can see it flaking away there at the top. I don't want to touch it.

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I'll just press my fingers against it,

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and you can see grains of sand just sticking to them.

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So, centuries of rain and wind are going to wreak havoc here.

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The constant weathering of the stone

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means there's virtually no original stonework left.

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A restoration and replacement programme begun in the 18th century

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has continued through to the present day.

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What kind of work do you do?

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Well, if there's a stone - say like one of these here -

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which is particularly badly weathered so it's structurally unsound,

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you cut it out and make another stone and refit it into the building.

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That looks like modern, abstract sculpture, doesn't it? Masons doodling or something.

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It's been eaten out by the elements.

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It's natural erosion. If you look at the building and say,

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"Well, it's not a stone building, it's a stone cliff face," you'd expect it to be eroded.

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So they built beautifully, but the material they had is known for weathering badly, isn't it?

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It's very porous - it will absorb water in the winter when it's raining -

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and then it gets cold, freezes, expands,

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and takes the face of the stone off.

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What does it feel like, then, to work on Durham Cathedral?

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Tiring!

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The sheer scale of Durham Cathedral is daunting, but I've only a few feet left to go.

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We're nearly at the top. Your first climb?

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I'm feeling good about it.

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Brilliant, Jonathan.

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-HE LAUGHS

-Beautiful!

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Yeah, that was nearly...

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Beautiful.

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Well done.

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-We got to the top, didn't we?

-First climb.

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-Yeah.

-Brilliant.

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I'm chuffed with that.

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I'm chuffed with that. First climb, and with it being such a big building...

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When you walk in the cathedral close, you see the entire length of the thing,

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and it's a Goliath amongst medieval buildings

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and you think, "That's what it's intended for," I guess.

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It makes you feel humble, makes you feel small.

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But...

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I feel a bit bigger than I did...

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a few minutes ago.

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The stone rib vault is one of Durham's most impressive features.

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More pioneering and magnificent than anything that had gone before in England.

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But its stone shell is incredibly heavy

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and the Normans had to ensure that the ribs which bore its weight

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didn't push the walls out and cause them to collapse.

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In order to solve this problem, they created flying buttresses

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which pushed back and braced the nave walls.

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And here they are - the first flying buttresses, at least in embryo.

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In fact, the Norman flying buttresses

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are much more slender than what you see today.

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It's just the uppermost of those three concentric arches which was laid by those Norman builders.

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Underneath are two more layers added in 1915.

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It's interesting that - even into the 20th century -

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the solution to the spreading vaults

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was to simply add to what the Normans had established 800 years earlier.

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The flying buttress may have been a cutting-edge innovation at Durham,

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but what truly defines a Romanesque cathedral

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is the use of what's known as a Norman arch.

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What are they all about, then?

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That's where that curious word, "Romanesque", comes in.

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Because if you took the elevation of the nave of Durham Cathedral

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and compared that with a Roman aqueduct,

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they wouldn't be so very different.

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It's really tier-upon-tier of semi-circular arches.

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And the structures were built more or less the same way.

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What you need is centring.

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You can imagine carpenters by the hundred here,

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assembling what looked like giant wagon wheels

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so that you can build an arch on top of them.

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These brown bits then stand for the piers or columns from which the arches spring.

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The centring is in place.

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So, the scaffolding can go up

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and we can get on with building our Norman arch.

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So, here they are - voussoirs.

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A nice Anglo-Norman word for a section of arch like this.

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In this case, five up.

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Now, once they're built on to their centring,

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and the keystone goes in place in the middle,

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we can remove the centring

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and it should stand more or less where we left it.

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Take the wedges out, and the centring goes.

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You can imagine everyone crossing their fingers -

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if they did such things in those times -

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when they took the centring down.

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Every arch gives a bit,

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but there we are - hey, presto! - and it stands.

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And once you've spotted one Norman arch, you see them everywhere.

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They're in the vaults, over the doorways and above the windows.

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The construction of the nave went from east to west over a period of 30 years

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and, as time passed, it's possible to see more exotic influences in the detail.

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Durham Cathedral's first building campaign, which ended in 1104,

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included the east end and preparations for the Norman tower.

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You can see the character of the architecture

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by the first two arches in the arcade of the nave,

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and the easternmost arch above it.

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They're plain, quite simple.

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But that moment coincided with a change in direction in English Romanesque architecture.

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Because it's thought by historians that the experience of the first crusade after 1096

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equipped people with knowledge of Islamic architecture,

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which is noted for its zig-zag decoration.

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So, when the second campaign started, look at it - it's a riot.

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It's as if all of this stone has been cut out with pinking shears - zig-zag everywhere.

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It's a curious thought that this masterpiece of Christian architecture

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might have been influenced by Islam.

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Whilst the Norman arch might be that most defining feature of this cathedral, it had its limitations.

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If the masons here stuck to it, it would have been much more difficult

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to build this magnificent vault.

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For my next climb, I'm going to go across what's called a postman's walk to reveal how they achieved it.

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Here, we're about 60 feet...

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Way more than that.

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-Are we?

-Yeah. Sorry, but yeah.

-Yeah? That's fine...

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-I'd say...

-I'm quite good at judging height looking UP!

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I would say it's definitely way more than 60.

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It's one thing to climb up a building with something solid to grab hold of,

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but it's altogether different

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to step on to something like a piece of string.

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Wow, Jonathan,

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-you are going to love this. I hope.

-Yeah.

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I mean, architecturally, I'm...

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-Oh, my lord! Yeah, you know, you see the whole seating plan in one go.

-Woo-hoo!

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Sorry. THEY LAUGH

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This is amazing.

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I think you made a valuable contribution to the choir - that double whoop!

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-I forgot we're in a cathedral.

-It echoed well.

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Right, here we go.

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Lucy makes it look so easy, but this is only my second climb,

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and frankly, I find it a bit scary.

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Ye Gods! That is disconcerting.

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-You can hold the line where the pulley is.

-That's better.

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Just be careful that the pulley doesn't go into your fingers.

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That's a funny feeling.

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Because it's quite springy up here.

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And it's like being on some kind of giant trampoline.

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Oh, my, that is so high.

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The reason I'm dealing with all this fear

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is to get a good look at the stone ceiling, or vault, as it's known.

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It's made up of a series of criss-crossing stone arches, called ribs.

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These are the their earliest surviving rib vaults anywhere -

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not just in Durham, but the whole of Europe.

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And they do two important things. Firstly, they get out of the idea

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that a vault has to be a stone shell of a consistent thickness, just like half a cylinder.

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And instead, the vaults are conceived as a series of ribs - it's rather skeletal.

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It feels like you're in a whale's chest or something. It's beautiful.

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To make this beautiful vault level, the masons had to build the transverse arches higher

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so they invented a brilliant new idea, the pointed arch.

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Ironically, when you walk into this most Norman of all cathedrals,

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you have this forest of pointed arches ahead of you.

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What it points toward is the Gothic age.

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It's hard to believe that changing the shape of an arch

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could have such a dramatic impact on architecture,

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but it's true to say that without it,

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such beautiful, vast and inspiring spaces

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would have been impossible to build.

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Once you get over the bendy, squashy ropes,

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and the fact they seem to be going somewhere when you first step on them,

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once you sit here and it takes the tension,

0:20:440:20:47

it's actually incredibly peaceful.

0:20:470:20:49

Before I climb the last stretch up one of these enormous towers,

0:20:540:20:58

you may well ask, "How did the medieval masons get such hefty bits of stone to such heights?"

0:20:580:21:05

One answer lies in this room in the south-west tower.

0:21:050:21:08

Have a look at this, Luce.

0:21:080:21:10

It's a windlass.

0:21:100:21:12

-Cool.

-Grab the windlass, lass.

0:21:120:21:15

Now, the thing is, these were used in the Middle Ages.

0:21:150:21:19

This one happens to be 18th century in date, but it's exactly the same kind of technology.

0:21:190:21:24

A winding system redistributes the weight in such a way

0:21:240:21:28

that two people could easily lift a ton-block of stone.

0:21:280:21:32

They could also easily lift a man, but unfortunately for me

0:21:320:21:36

they don't have a windlass at the top of these towers.

0:21:360:21:39

For my final climb, I'm going to have to put some serious effort in.

0:21:390:21:42

These towers rise a massive 144 feet over the western front of the building.

0:21:420:21:48

I hope I have more luck than an early adventurer who apparently climbed them a long time ago.

0:21:480:21:54

You know, there's a story,

0:21:550:21:57

and it's...a tightrope walker in 1237.

0:21:570:22:02

He stretches a rope across those towers

0:22:020:22:04

and walks for the entertainment of the monks,

0:22:040:22:07

and plunges to his death.

0:22:070:22:08

-What?!

-I don't know if it's the historian in me that doubts that,

0:22:080:22:12

or whether it's just blind fear that says that can't happen.

0:22:120:22:15

It's not going to happen.

0:22:150:22:17

We have to get outside the tower to start our climb.

0:22:200:22:23

I'm beginning to understand that Lucy is never going to take the easy option.

0:22:230:22:28

Woo!

0:22:280:22:30

I'm staying calm, but I'm prepared to be petrified!

0:22:300:22:36

Awesome. I'm back again.

0:22:360:22:40

She's back.

0:22:400:22:42

It's a long way down there.

0:22:420:22:44

Your turn, guys.

0:22:440:22:47

That was cool.

0:22:470:22:48

Bit scary, thank you.

0:22:480:22:50

All right, ready?

0:22:500:22:53

Oh, well, got to commit. We're off.

0:22:540:22:58

Well done! Brilliant.

0:23:000:23:03

Oh, dear.

0:23:030:23:05

Well done.

0:23:050:23:07

That was a very exposed leap, it has to be said.

0:23:070:23:10

Gosh! It's beautiful, though. Look at it.

0:23:100:23:12

-You just don't see many sights like that.

-No.

0:23:120:23:16

I tell you what, though...

0:23:170:23:19

you just think...

0:23:190:23:23

that the people who built these things are giants.

0:23:230:23:27

We too easily patronise the past.

0:23:270:23:30

We call things medieval...

0:23:300:23:31

-Yeah.

-..and talk about being primitive.

0:23:310:23:34

But actually...

0:23:340:23:37

-it's such a sophisticated thing to have done this.

-Absolutely.

0:23:370:23:41

Definitely blows my mind.

0:23:420:23:44

These towers were completed almost 80 years after the main building

0:23:440:23:49

and you can see examples of both Norman and Gothic architecture on top of each other.

0:23:490:23:55

I noticed something slightly odd about this tower.

0:23:550:23:58

I've climbed past these pointed arches -

0:23:580:24:01

the type of gothic arch which Durham seems to have pioneered in the nave

0:24:010:24:05

when they built those beautiful rib vaults.

0:24:050:24:08

-I've come up to a row of round arches again, aren't they?

-Yeah.

0:24:080:24:14

There are two possibilities.

0:24:140:24:16

One is that Durham's builders had stockpiled a whole series

0:24:160:24:20

of round arches which they wanted to use, but that seems unlikely.

0:24:200:24:25

These fine mouldings and these capitals are very much like the ones below.

0:24:250:24:30

The other, I think, more intriguing idea

0:24:300:24:32

is that the builders of Durham

0:24:320:24:36

were so enamoured of their round-arched, so-called Romanesque structure,

0:24:360:24:42

they had to bind the whole thing together and continue the style that they had begun so beautifully.

0:24:420:24:49

I quite like that idea, really.

0:24:490:24:51

Progress can be overrated.

0:24:510:24:54

I've studied architecture for as long as you've been climbing - 20 years.

0:24:590:25:03

I remember coming to Durham and seeing it from the valley over the way

0:25:030:25:07

and thinking, "What a work of wonder that is."

0:25:070:25:10

I'm looking back at it the other way now

0:25:100:25:12

and it's that that takes my mind off the fact

0:25:120:25:15

that I'm simply not used to...

0:25:160:25:18

Dangling off two shoe strings.

0:25:180:25:20

Don't put it like that. Let's go.

0:25:200:25:24

Two very strong shoe strings.

0:25:240:25:25

You're reassuring, Luce.

0:25:250:25:27

Jonathan, with these big archways,

0:25:290:25:32

would it have been some fantastic window, a giant pane of glass?

0:25:320:25:36

What's the point of them?

0:25:360:25:38

They're always set against the wall like this.

0:25:380:25:42

These are called blind arches.

0:25:420:25:45

The idea really is to add decoration.

0:25:450:25:47

They're purely decorative.

0:25:470:25:48

It's an investment in these mouldings and this richness on the surface.

0:25:480:25:52

It catches the sunlight. It makes the building look more solid.

0:25:520:25:57

It gives depth into the facade.

0:25:570:25:59

They're there for the pure joy of it.

0:25:590:26:01

On this west facade imagine when the sun goes down.

0:26:010:26:05

A gorgeous display of light and shade.

0:26:050:26:07

-Out of interest, what's the blackness?

-Pollution.

-Is it?

0:26:160:26:21

Yeah, it's the relics of coal fires.

0:26:210:26:25

Yes, because it seems much worse on this level.

0:26:250:26:28

Yeah, doesn't it?

0:26:280:26:29

It is an amazing thing for people who built this place almost 1,000 years ago

0:26:350:26:41

to have had no side rails, no health and safety, nothing.

0:26:410:26:45

They got on with it for as long as they could get away with it in any one building season.

0:26:450:26:50

I've got to say I'm clinging on to this building.

0:26:500:26:53

You have to have faith in this stuff,

0:26:530:26:55

but nonetheless, you still have your instinct to overcome.

0:26:550:26:59

I've seen buildings like most other people from the ground upwards,

0:26:590:27:03

but when you see it from the perspective of those who built it in the first place,

0:27:030:27:08

you realise what giants they were.

0:27:080:27:12

-Nice work, my man.

-Thank you, fella.

0:27:150:27:18

That really is very impressive for a beginner, what you've just done.

0:27:180:27:22

-Really?

-Yep, yep.

0:27:220:27:25

I've nothing to compare it to.

0:27:250:27:26

-There are probably quite a lot of climbers who wouldn't want to do that.

-Really?

0:27:260:27:31

Yeah and I'm not just saying that. That's genuine. Yep!

0:27:310:27:34

That is a beautiful prospect.

0:27:430:27:45

About 1,000 years ago, people who lived in timber huts in this area

0:27:450:27:50

must have watched as this Goliath of a Norman cathedral was built in their midst.

0:27:500:27:56

They must have been awestruck, and the thing is,

0:27:560:27:59

all these centuries later, that impression hasn't changed.

0:27:590:28:04

Next time...

0:28:100:28:11

I climb Lincoln Cathedral, an architectural laboratory

0:28:110:28:15

where English Gothic style was brought to perfection.

0:28:150:28:19

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0:28:340:28:37

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0:28:370:28:40

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