A cathedral for Bedfordshire
Tales of wood and stone.
In this post I’m going to be exploring some of the fascinating connections between cathedrals and a county that doesn’t actually have a cathedral of its own, or does it…?
Cathedrals act as the mother, or principal, church of their area and are the seat of the bishop, the place from where they exercise their ministry. Today Bedfordshire sits in the Anglican Diocese of St Albans, making St Albans Cathedral (or St Albans Abbey) in Hertfordshire the cathedral church for Bedfordshire.1 his has only been the case since 1914, before that the county had, from 1837 been part of the Diocese of Ely, and prior to that, since 1075, had been in the Diocese of Lincoln. In the earliest days of the English church, Bedfordshire was part of the see of Dorchester.
Bedfordshire may not have had a cathedral of its own in the medieval period but it helped build other cathedrals and churches. The Totternhoe chalk quarry, belonging to Dunstable Priory and an important source of income, was in its heyday. The stone was soft when freshly quarried and was sought after for carving and, because it was light, for building church vaults. Many local churches, as well as Westminster Abbey and St Albans Cathedral, feature Totternhoe stone.
In 1322, the Norman tower at Ely Cathedral collapsed. In its place the Octagon Tower that visitors can still see towering over the damp fenland landscape today, was built. The timber lantern was designed by Edward III’s architect, William Hurley, and eight other master carpenters. The large, tall, straight oak trees they needed came from Chicksands Wood, which was owned by Chicksands Priory, making their way to Ely from Bedfordshire by boat along the river Great Ouse.
At the time of the Reformation, monasteries and abbeys were dissolved but their churches were often repurposed as parish churches or cathedrals. In Bedfordshire at least two of these churches were discussed as possible cathedrals as part of a project to reduce the size of some of the larger dioceses. Dunstable Priory was one of these, with the prior’s house suggested as a bishop’s palace and the Priory House a hostel for visitors. Closer to the county town of Bedford, it has been suggested that Henry VIII was minded to make Elstow Abbey church a cathedral, urged on by Stephen Gardiner.
Neither of these schemes came to pass so Bedfordshire remained without a cathedral. However, it is interesting to ponder what might have happened if one had been selected. Would Dunstable’s position as a staging post on Watling Street (the modern A5) have been strengthened, and the centre of local administrative power shifted from Bedford? Would the small village of Elstow have grown into a town around a new cathedral and have come to rival Bedford? What impact might that have had on John Bunyan whose early life and formative religious experiences took place in Elstow?
St Paul’s Church in Bedford was an important minster church from the tenth century onwards. It is a large medieval church, often described as being of ‘cathedral proportions’ and acts as the Civic Church for both Bedford Borough and Bedfordshire. This might make it seem like the closest thing that modern Bedfordshire has to a cathedral, but there is another candidate in the small village of Whipsnade, nestling on the edge of the Chilterns chalk escarpment on Dunstable Downs.
Edmund Blyth served in the infantry in World War I and suffered the loss of friends Arthur Bailey and John Bennett, who died in the March retreat of 1918. He wanted to create a lasting memorial for his friends and drew inspiration from a visit to the unfinished Liverpool Cathedral, which was based on a design by Giles Gilbert Scott. He began planting what would become Whipsnade Tree Cathedral between 1930-1939.
On the outbreak of the Second World War, Blyth returned to his regiment. The young plantation was left untended for eight years until he returned from Berlin in 1947, to re-join his family law firm. In the intervening years, the site had become overgrown but by 1952, enough of the tangled undergrowth had been cleared to allow ecumenical services to be held. In 1960 Blyth presented the cathedral to the National Trust, with a covenant allowing trustees of the Whipsnade Tree Cathedral Fund to continue its upkeep and organise services.
The chancel, nave, transepts, chapels and cloisters at Whipsnade are laid out in the shape of a traditional medieval cathedral.2 Trees, shrubs and grass avenues create a green church, designed to embody a spirit of 'faith, hope and reconciliation'. Its ability to move in the wind, its lightness and the natural space gives it a very different feel to the solidity of stone encountered in a traditional cathedral.
When visiting old churches and cathedrals, many people will talk about feeling a sense of the past, perhaps in terms of prayers offered or history witnessed. Whipsnade Tree Cathedral wears its historic weight more lightly, but if you know its story the atmosphere can still evoke Blyth’s absent friends kneeling in the leafy chapel, the light as thick as if filled with incense. They listen to the whisper of the High Altar, the rustle of silver birch gracefully fading away.
It has no official status and is unconsecrated but nonetheless, it is a cathedral for Bedfordshire.
Bedfordshire also sits in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Northamptonshire. The Cathedral Church of St Mary and St Thomas in Northampton serves the county’s Roman Catholics.
Pevsner, in his volume on Bedfordshire, Huntingdon and Peterborough published in 1963, rather sniffily wrote ‘It is not in the least laid out as a cathedral, but services are held in it.’ The Historic England listing from 2017 disagrees. The intervening 50 years may have made the cathedral plan more obvious.
Really interesting. I was at school in St Albans and although I know the abbey is a cathedral, I’ve never called it anything other than ‘the abbey’, which somehow makes it feel more homely.
Thank you, Shelly, for another informative and inspiring post. Whipsnade tree cathedral is now on the ‘must visit’ list.