Walk around any ancient church and you will see the names of the long dead and the long forgotten who hoped for some remembrance by attaching their names to a part of the structure. Soldiers, scholars, saints, politicians – all hoping for a little immortality through their posthumous association with a grand place of worship. It’s not so different from tagging a bus shelter or a subway car or from carving your initials into a favorite tree. Maybe someone will pass by in a hundred or a thousand years and wonder who you were. In a cathedral as old and as beautiful as Winchester, the “graffiti” is a little grander, but it covers almost every surface, carved into elegant monuments, tombstones, glass, and plaques.

Winchester Cathedral’s origins are in the 7th century, but the oldest part of what the visitor sees today is from the church started in 1079 by Bishop Walkelin. To that base generation after generation has added for nearly a thousand years, and it’s nothing short of a miracle that what stands today is such a beautiful, harmonious whole. Winchester has seen it all – wars, plagues, vandalism, and pillage – and stands today, as it has in some form for nearly 1,400 years, as a monument to faith, power, and wealth. Walking the nave and transepts in 2020, as I did earlier this week, means following signs on the ancient floor to keep two meters distant from other visitors and using hand sanitizer provided as you enter the grand west end of the cathedral. The ancient stones and windows have seen it all before. They have seen pandemics come and go. They have watched one generation of visitors following another, each one in turn awed by the scale and beauty. Sic transit gloria mundi, but in Winchester Cathedral the glory passes very slowly indeed.