Here is the view as we drove into the town or maybe it is a city.
Our first stop was the city museum. It was free so why not visit. There was a bit wheel inside and the lady explained that it was a medival windlass. A windlass was a human powered crane that was used to move stone and other materials up when they were constructing buildings. This was had been in the church and was now in the museum. There are three others ones but most of those are inside the building.
Here is a model and what it would have looked like in the church.
This was a great hands on museum. There was a table of all kinds of things and we were to guess what they were used for. There was a brush for hats, a meat grinder (I knew that one as my mom has one and I can remember using hers), a candle snuffer, and a few other things. Both of the people working there took the time to talk with us and explain various things in the museum.
There was a section of things that dated back to the Roman times as this was a market town. J is trying to use a mortar.
This is not far from the coal mining area. Miss K was dressed with the hard hat for coal mining. I think her pink dress would get dirty.
We began the climb to the top. It was a narrow passageway with steps that curved. We paused first where they play the bells. Our tour guide asked J to try and ring the bells. He pulled with all his might and even got his whole body involved but we didn't hear a sound.
Miss K was not going to sit and watch her brother have all the fun. She tried and she rang the bell. The difference was he was trying the largest bell and she was trying the smallest bell.
Here are the bells. We learned that each bell has a name.
Then we climbed some more and we looked up the spire. When it was constructed it was all wood. So the question that we all had was, why and how did it get twisted. There are a few legends of how it happened. The most likely thing is that it was unskilled labourers as it was built just after the Black Death combined with green timber. It seems that it did not twist when it was built. Also combined with the unskilled labourers and the green time was the fact that later the spire was covered with lead which heats up on the south side causing the lead to expand at a greater rate than the north side. The guide did say that there are some other cathedrals with twists spires.
Our last bit of climbing was up a ladder and then we were outside standing next to the spire. We were outside with the wind blowing and the open air. I love heights when I am safety inside but out in the open. I was done at a few seconds but I had to wait for others to come up. I didn't bother to walk around and look. I did look and see our car in the parking lot. I handed the camera to J and asked him to take some photos.
Here it is looking up from where we were outside. You can see the twist of the spire.
It was a fun day as we explored a bit of the area where we live.
Beth
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