Ships Of Heaven: The Private Life of Britain’s Cathedrals

Product Description

Price: $19.95 - $5.99
(as of Dec 06, 2025 20:46:14 UTC – Details)

‘Somerville is one of our finest gazetteers of the British countryside. He brings his formidable knowledge to bear on his personal quest to explore the cathedrals in this entrancing book’
The Spectator
Christopher Somerville, author of the acclaimed The January Man, pictured cathedrals as great unmoving bastions of tradition. But as he journeys among Britian’s favourites, old and new, he discovers buildings and communities that have been in constant upheaval for a thousand years. Here are stories of the monarchs and bishops who ordered the construction of these buildings, the masons whose genius brought them into being, and the peasants who worked and died on the scaffolding. We learn of rogue saints exploited by holy sinners, the pomp and prosperity that followed these ships of stone, the towns that grew up in their shadows.
Meeting believers and non-believers, architects and archaeologists, the cleaner who dusts the monuments and the mason who judges stone by its taste, we delve deep into the private lives and the uncertain future of these ever-voyaging Ships of Heaven.
‘Somerville paints word pictures of exquisite quality’
Church Times

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B06XFRPYQ6
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Transworld Digital
Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
Publication date ‏ : ‎ April 11, 2019
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 39.8 MB
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Print length ‏ : ‎ 334 pages
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1473527140
Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #924,142 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store) #31 in Religious Buildings Architecture #137 in Pictorial Travel #222 in Religious Building Architecture
Customer Reviews: 4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (101) var dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction; P.when(‘A’, ‘ready’).execute(function(A) { if (dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction !== true) { dpAcrHasRegisteredArcLinkClickAction = true; A.declarative( ‘acrLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault”: true }, function (event) { if (window.ue) { ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrLinkClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } } ); } }); P.when(‘A’, ‘cf’).execute(function(A) { A.declarative(‘acrStarsLink-click-metrics’, ‘click’, { “allowLinkDefault” : true }, function(event){ if(window.ue) { ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”, (ue.count(“acrStarsLinkWithPopoverClickCount”) || 0) + 1); } }); });