7. Tour of St Albans City and St Albans Cathedral, 15 July 2023

Members of the Company joined Eileen and me for a tour of St Albans City led by a City guide.  We met in the ancient market place and worked our way through the medieval and historic centre of the City.  We learnt that the City should have been called St Alban but there was a typing error in the document conferring city status.  We found the many inns had been turned into shops and overhanging frontages that had been replaced.  We saw the impact of using green timber, which was easy to work but distorted as it aged.

After lunch in a traditional pub we toured the Cathedral seeing the many different styles of construction in the history of the building.  We learnt about the reuse of Saxon columns in the Norman part of the cathedral and the reuse of Roman bricks in the Saxon cathedral, reused again in the Norman cathedral.  Through the projection of coloured light onto the medieval wall paintings we saw the amazing scenes that have welcomed pilgrims for centuries.  In the former school house, now the Lady Chapel, we saw the stained glass paid for by the City of London and livery companies.  We finished at the shrine of St Alban and the rebuilt shrine of Amphibalus complete with modern carvings including a face with a Covid-era mask.

It was a fascinating day and we are grateful to our expert guides.