Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Thursday 13 May 2021

Our Lady of Ely


In my attempt to impose a bit of rationality on the strange itinerary seemingly devised by the late Canon Stevenson and also to include additional shrines as we reached Thetford earlier the next stop is Ely cathedral, that great ship of the Fens sailing ever onward through time and drawing people towards the Isle it crowns. 

File:Ely Cathedral Lady Chapel, Cambridgeshire, UK - Diliff.jpg

The Lady Chapel Ely Cathedral

Image: Wikimedia

As I wrote previously this is not, for some reason, one of the Marian shrines on the original list but I am including it here and would direct readers to my post from last year which can be read at Our Lady of Ely

The Lady Chapel, Ely Cathedral, Cambridgeshire, UK

The Lady Chapel Ely Cathedral

Image: greenshoots.co.uk
 
In that post I gave my view of the ghastly figure of the Virgin that has been installed above the altar in recent years. Preparing this post I was somewhat taken aback, though equally somehow not surprised, to find that the Dean and Chapter let the Lady Chapel out for dinners - if readers are up to such a frisson of horror look at this commercial website: Catering at Ely Cathedral


Our Lady of Ely Pray for us


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