By Ellie Jones, Cathedral Archivist
Every year, when the Cathedral School breaks up for the long summer holidays, the Cathedral welcomes a series of visiting choirs. They come from near and far and fill the Cathedral with their beautiful music at Evensong. On and off throughout the day we are treated to the sounds of their rehearsals in the Sacristy and Song Schools above the Library & Archives.
Sometimes the choirs also take time out of their busy programme to visit the Library & Archives. Last week the Goring Chamber Choir came to explore themes ranging from Thomas of Canterbury (to whom the Goring parish church is dedicated), to music, and Cathedral connections to Goring and Oxfordshire.
At one end of the scale, we looked at an account roll recording expenditure on the construction of the Cathedral in 1333-1334. This roll is one of several which record the work of the master mason Thomas of Witney, who was probably born in Witney in Oxfordshire. Witney was an important figure in the design and construction of the Cathedral in the early 14th century.
At the opposite extreme, we also enjoyed looking at Revd C.R. Goring and Andrew Pritchard’s ‘Microscopic objects, animal, vegetable and mineral: with instructions for preparing and viewing them’ (1847). As well as helpful tips on how to prepare microscope slides, this book is notable for its chapter on the “megaloscope”, an optical instrument for magnifying larger objects. Revd Goring writes humorously about how nice – but impossible – it would be to use a “megalascope” to “exhibit the whole of a goose, jackass or elephant magnified a million of times”. He then goes on to describe an encounter with a showman fraudster in Hyde Park who was charging halfpenny each for people to “…clap your hies to this ere wonderful and most stupenderous hinsterment, it magnifies nearly one million of times or I’m a liar and any of you may be kenwicted of the truth of what I says by lookin’ at the dimond-beedle with one
hi, while you sees Apsley House with the hother”!
We are grateful to all the visiting choirs and look forward to welcoming more of them to the Cathedral and the Library & Archives in the years to come.