Lincoln Cathedral & The Forest Stations

"I have always held... that the cathedral of Lincoln is out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles and roughly speaking worth any two other cathedrals we have." John Ruskin

Lincoln Cathedral (Or more properly The Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln) is a beautiful 12^th Century masterpiece. It has not been without it’s share of catastrophe and it is fairly amazing to be standing at all.

William the Conqueror ordered the first cathedral to be built in Lincoln, in 1072 but the cathedral now standing on the present site was built by Bishop Remigius, finishing it in 1092 a mamouth feat of engineering and a testiment to his power and influence – but he managed to die two days before it was to be consecrated on May 9 of that year.

About fifty years later, most of that building was destroyed in a fire. This time Bishop Alexander rebuilt and expanded the cathedral, but it was destroyed by an earthquake about forty years later, in 1185!

This third cathedral is also the third largest in Britain (in floor space). It is Lincolnshire's largest building dominating the skyline above the city and until 1549 the tower was the tallest building in the world for over 200 years (1300-1549) but the central spire collapsed in the sixteenth century and was not rebuilt.

The cathedral currently houses a beautiful display of the Stations of the Cross also known as The 'Forest' stations a pun on their materials - mixed wood sculptured relief pieces by local artist William Fairbank.

Fairbank was born in 1950 and is a carpenter and joiner by trade. Having studied at Ravensbourne, he ran his own carpentry and joinery business and became an expert in woodcarving and veneering. He was involved in a serious car accident in 1987 and has since devoted his creative time to the sations series uncommissioned for seven years. They comprise of 15 pieces.

The Stations of the cross: -

The stations (or Way of the Cross; in Latin, Via Crucis; also called the Via Dolorosa or Way of Sorrows, or simply, The Way) have their origins in 4th century Jerusalem when pilgrims would flocked to the Holy Land from all parts of the world. Heading the list of places they visited was the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, built by the Emperor Constantine in 335 AD atop Calvary and the reputed tomb of Jesus.

Processions of pilgrims to this church were common. Over the years, the route of pilgrim processions, beginning at the ruins of the Fortress Antonia and ending at the church of the Holy Sepulcher, was to become commonly accepted as the route Jesus followed to his death.

"Stations" developed on this route as early pilgrims honored places where specific incidents took place as Jesus went Calvary. However, the search for them was complicated because the Jerusalem of Jesus' day had been almost completely destroyed by Roman armies in 70 AD. In many cases, therefore, pilgrims could only guess where some incidents described in the gospel took place and are estimated to have originated momento and possibly the first tourist items later interpreted as reconstructions in stone, wood, or metal, sculptured, carved, paintings or engravings in churches as the build spread the Christian world to a largely illiterate population. They became a widespread sign of Christian devotion towards the end of the 17^th century, now found in nearly every church world wide.

Formerly their number varied considerably in different places but fourteen are now prescribed by authority to be the numbered sequence depicting the last passion. They are as follows: -

Christ condemned to death

the cross is laid upon him

His first fall

He meets His Blessed Mother

Simon of Cyrene is made to bear the cross

Christ's face is wiped by Veronica

His second fall

He meets the women of Jerusalem

His third fall

He is stripped of His garments

His crucifixion

His death on the cross

His body is taken down from the cross

And laid in the tomb

The object of the Stations is to help the faithful to make in spirit, as it were, a pilgrimage to the chief scenes of Christ's sufferings and death, and this has become one of the most popular of Catholic devotions. It is carried out by passing from Station to Station, with certain prayers at each and devout meditation on the various incidents in turn.