Christ Church Cathedral – Planning Visit

Christ Church Cathedral is the College Chapel of Christ Church College and is comfortably Oxford’s busiest chapel.  Following a comparatively brief series of communications, today’s visit allowed me to meet the Operations Manager who conducted me around the site for the best part of an hour, showing me some of the hidden gems within the building.  Currently the cathedral is undergoing considerable conservation work and upgrades to the lights.  As a result, the entire Nave and Ante-Chapel are occupied by scaffolding.  To my surprise and delight, I have been granted access to this in my future visits, which will enable me an uninterrupted and level view of the East Rose Window, normally partially hidden when viewed from the ground.  Additionally, I will be able to photograph from a number of other raised locations typically closed to the public, eliminating the quality loss that comes from the need to correct converging verticals in post production.  Furthermore I have been granted access to a large collection of fragments of van Linge stained glass fragments found within the cathedral grounds together with the Cathedral’s large light box.

My return visit will see me having private access to the site, which is rather an honour and makes me a little nervous about being sure to do a good job!  My plan has always been to capture just one window within each chapel, but (as I feared) I suspect I will end up photographing much more than that.

Peter Marlow (2010) Christ Church Cathedral