Here are more of the stone heads from Ely. I couldn’t get as close as I did with the others but they tend to be in a better state of preservation. This is partly because they are out of reach of rampaging Parliamentarian soldiers and partly, I think, because some of them have been restored.
I’ve just been trying to find more information but apart from finding out that the original stone came from Barnack, near Peterborough (which isn’t exactly earth-shaking news, as a lot of stone came from Barnack) I didn’t find much.
It was interesting to find that Ely paid for the stone by providing 8,000 eels a year, though I can’t find out how many years they provided them for. That’s a lot of eels, but if you were to eat 2 a day it would only take 11 people to eat them in a year. If you believe everything you read about churchmen and high living they would have needed a lot more food than that.
I’ve also found out that Cromwell stabled his horses in the cathedral, though he gets blamed for that at every cathedral. In fact he gets blamed for lots of things.
The stone cat head seems to be popular, and I add to that vote. Any idea of why they are on the old cathedrals?
They just seem popular – I suspect they were kept for company and mousing. There are plenty on the web if you search cathedral and cats. 🙂
I, too, found the resemblance to Felix the cat. Are cats often found on old cathedrals?
There’s a cat carved on the spire of St Wulfram’s in Grantham. I’ll have to pop over and take a photograph.
Great shots. I much prefer the unrestored ones
They certainly have more character.
Like all of us 🙂
Yes, I have definitely aged like a stone head rather than matured like a fine wine. 😉
Felix the Cat is in there somewhere!
I knew there was something familiar in there but couldn’t place it. Good spot!
Wow. The worn/chopped faces really belong in a horror movie.
It’s a hard life being a stone head on a Cathedral! 🙂
It paid not to be rude to stonemasons if you didn’t want to be immortalised as an ugly face.
That is great power isn’t it – ten minutes of unpleasantness rewarded by a thousand years of ridicule. 🙂