The Thomas Becket ceiling boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral. Photograph by Andie Byrnes
- Introduction
- Who was Thomas Becket?
- The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel of St Werburgh’s Abbey
- Final Comments
- Sources
Introduction
Chester Cathedral plan (annotated). Source: Wikipedia
In the 13th century, Abbot Simon de Whitchurch (1265-1291) began the construction of Lady Chapel in St Werburgh’s Abbey (which is today Chester Cathedral, and about which I have posted here, with visiting information including accessibility). It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. In the ceiling, where the vaulting ribs meet, three round ceiling bosses high above the floor show religious themes. One shows the Holy Trinity and the second shows the Virgin Mary and the baby Jesus. The third, shown above, shows shows the murder of Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, by four knights loyal to Henry II on 29th December 1170 in Christ Church Cathedral in Canterbury. It is one of only two Becket ceiling bosses known to survive in Britain; the other is at Exeter Cathedral (shown below left).
What these two busy little scenes in Chester and Exeter depict was a brutal and savage act of great violence. The murder of Becket was a violation one of England’s holiest precincts, a modern martyrdom, and an affront not only to the ecclesiastical hierarchy in England but to the papacy itself. All eyes turned towards Henry II. This was not the sort of attention that Henry wanted, and he spent the rest of his reign attempting to distance himself from the event.
The news of the murder spread swiftly and was deeply shocking to 12th century English and European society. The terrible events were captured by eye witness accounts, not least that of the clerk Edward Grim who attempted to intervene and protect Becket. Almost immediately miracles were attributed to Becket, and only three years later he was canonized by the pope, becoming St Thomas. His story was told in biographies of the saint, and his scenes of his life, martyrdom and miracles were rendered in wood, stone and paint, whilst relics were assiduously collected and displayed. In a world where martyrs and their deeds were factual events but remote, the real-time martyrdom of the head of the English church by representatives of the king was religious persecution in action, fresh and alarming in a way that past events might not be. It was unthinkable.
Document dating to around 1180, around a decade after the event, showing the murder of Becket, from an eye-witness account by John of Salisbury (Cotton MS Claudius BII f.341r). Source: British Library.
From the moment of his murder, people were attracted to Christ Church cathedral to commemorate Becket. His canonization made Christ Church Cathedral a formal and very desirable pilgrim destination. The shrine itself, completed 50 years after Becket’s death, became one of Europe’s top pilgrim sites.
The saint was still attracting pilgrims in the 16th century when Henry VIII, identifying the cult of Becket as a challenge to his absolute control over religious as well as secular matters, ordered that every image of the martyr should be destroyed. The systematic annihilation of Becket shrines and images contributed to the demise of Becket’s legacy, which was reinforced by further systematic defacements of Catholic artistic and architectural themes during the Reformation, including various monuments in Chester Cathedral, including the St Werburgh shrine.
Who was Thomas Becket?
Becket’s early career
Thomas Becket was the son of a Norman merchant who moved from Normandy (northwest France) to take up opportunities in London following the invasion of William I in 1066. Gilbert and his wife Matilda lived in commercial area of London called Cheapside. Gilbert rose to the position of sheriff, climbing several rungs on the social and political ladder. It is thought that Thomas Becket was born around 1118-1120.
Becket was was born into the period of civil war between King Stephen and the Empress Matilda (mother of Henry II). He received a good formal education, first at Merton Priory (now in southwest London), and later at a school in London. In his late teenage years he went to Paris to study, in a Parisian heyday of scholarship and artistic endeavour. His studies included some of the most popular scholastic topics, including grammar, rhetoric and canon (church) law, which were essential tools for anyone wanting to make their mark on the world, but did not include any formal religious education. He returned to England in the early 1140s under the reign of Henry II, who was crowned as monarch on the death of Stephen in December 1154.
Seals of Archbishop Theobald and of Christ Church, Canterbury. Source: “Theobald. Archbishop of Canterbury” by Avrom Saltman via the Internet Archive
In the mid 1140s Becket was recommended to the Archbishop of Canterbury Theobold of Bec (c.1090-1116) and obtained a role as a clerk in the cathedral, a mainly administrative position which, however, offered opportunities for advancement. A cathedral is both the principal church of the diocese and the seat of the bishop and, as at Christ Church, often included a monastic establishment. Becket’s Paris education was probably attractive to Theobold, who had a number of similarly educated young men in his employ. Like most incumbents of the Canterbury archbishopric, Theobold was both a cleric and a diplomat, closely involved in crown matters, but had twice been exiled by King Stephen due to his intervention in political matters. He sent Becket to Auxerre in France and Bologna in Italy to study law. Law, divided into Church (canon) law and state law, was rapidly becoming an important topic in Medieval England.
Becket’s rise to power
The 12th-century Topographica Hiberniae (Topology of Ireland) by Gerald of Wales shows a rare contemporary image of the king. Source: Wikipedia
In 1154 Becket was promoted to the role of Archdeacon of Canterbury. As well as the financial rewards that enabled him to satisfy his love of luxury, his new position was sufficiently prestigious for Theobold to recommend Becket to the 21-year old Henry II as the new royal chancellor. Henry’s coronation at Westminster Abbey, following the death of Stephen, had taken place in the same year. Their professional relationship evolved into a friendship over a period of eight years as Becket flourished in a position of enormous responsibility. It was a mark of Becket’s success in this role that on the death of Theobold in 1161 Henry moved to appoint him Archbishop of Canterbury, to hold both positions simultaneously. Becket had no religious ambitions, had received no clerical training and consequently had never been ordained into the priesthood. In spite of these drawbacks, Becket was elected to the role by the monks of Canterbury and the bishops of southern England. Ordination was rushed through, and Becket was consecrated as Archbishop on 3rd June 1162. His appointment was confirmed by Pope, who sent him a pallium, a vestment that symbolized his new office and status.
Needless to say, the appointment was not universally celebrated. Quite apart from the fact that Becket had made enemies on his rise to power, decisions such as the appointment of an archbishop was one of the areas of conflict between Crown and Church. The Church thought that it should have complete autonomy over its own affairs, answerable only to the papacy and to God; but the Crown, conscious of the power and wealth wielded by the ecclesiastical institutions, wanted to exercise its own authority over the activities of the most important institutions, including Canterbury. The right to appoint the most senior ecclesiastical personnel, was only one bone of contention. The right of the Church to operate under its own canon law was another.
King Henry II and Thomas Becket arguing. Peter of Langtoft’s Chronicle, Royal 20 A II, f.7v. Source: British Library
There was no reason to think that Thomas Becket would not continue to remain completely committed and loyal to the Crown. It was therefore a very unpleasant surprise to Henry II when Becket began to take his new role seriously, resigning his position as chancellor to focus on promoting the rights of the Church and representing the authority of the papacy. From this point forward, Becket and Henry had opposing interests. Becket’s training in law put him in an excellent position for arguing that the Church, rather than the Crown, should be in charge of ecclesiastical justice, in which Church clerics who committed even violent crime would be judged not by secular courts but by the far more lenient ecclesiastical courts. There were many other disputes between the two, when Becket took a stand not only where ecclesiastical interests were involved, but in matters of state as well. Henry attempted to resolve the situation by imposing a set of “customs,” or rules adhered to in the era of Henry I, Henry II’s grandfather, assembled in the Constitutions of Clarendon to which he commanded that Becket and all the bishops defer. Although Becket at first refused to ratify the document, he and the bishops eventually submitted to pressure and signed. However, Henry was seriously annoyed and began to investigate Becket, finding grounds for ordering him to court to address a number of charges. When Becket refused first to accept the charges against him and then to reject the resulting sentence, he made the decision to flee to France.
The Abbey Church of the monastery of Pontigny. Photo by Mediocrity. Source: Wikipedia
Becket lived in exile at the Cistercian monastery of Pontigny in France from November 1164 until 1170. In exile he attempted to drum up support, but alienated Henry still further by excommunicating a number of his advisers. Pope Alexander sent papal legates to try to resolve the dispute instructing Becket to refrain from taking any more actions against the king and his court, but in April 1169 Becket excommunicated another ten royal officials. In 1170 Henry’s son Henry was crowned as the Young King, in a secondary role to Henry II order to settle any potential succession disputes. The coronation was presided over by the Archbishop of York, Roger de Pont L’Évêque. It was the right of the Archbishop of Canterbury to preside over coronations, and Becket responded to this insult by laying an interdict on England, with the pope’s permission. This forced Henry back to the negotiating table, and he came to terms with Becket on 22nd July 1170. Becket returned to England in the December of that year. One might have thought that Becket would count his blessings, but before he arrived he could not resist excommunicating the three individuals most closely associated with the coronation of the Young King, one of whom was the Archbishop of York. The three appealed to the king, who was in his Normandy territory, and it was at this point that Henry, in a rage, expressed his frustrations about Becket’s latest act of rebellion. What Henry II actually said is not recorded, but it spurred four of his knights to set off for Canterbury from Normandy.
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Murder in the cathedral
One of the earliest known representations of the murder of Becket (c.1175–1225). British Library Harley MS 5102, f.32. Source: Wikipedia
The knights rode from London to Canterbury. They left their armour and weapons outside the cathedral precinct, intending to arrest Becket and return him to London for trial. Becket was having none of it. Eye-witness accounts state unambiguously that Becket’s behaviour was that of a very angry man under serious threat, confronting the knights on the steps of the cathedral. Goaded by Becket’s verbal retaliation and refusal to back down, they retreated to put on their armour and retrieve their weapons, returning to slaughter the unarmed archbishop in rage. Blows of the sword to his head killed him relatively swiftly, producing an alarming amount of gore that spilled onto the floor around him. One of the swords struck him so powerfully that the sheer momentum carried it to the ground, snapping the end off the blade. Edward Grim, who attempted to intervene, was badly injured.
His murderers were Reginald FitzUrse, William de Tracy, Richard Brito (or le Breton) and Hugh de Morville. FitzUrse, whose name means “son of bear,” is often marked out on images of the murder with the image of a bear’s head on his shield. He is shown on both the Chester and Exeter bosses. Having committed the crime, the knights headed for Yorkshire where they remained for a year. Curiously, Henry made no move against them, but in 1171 Pope Alexander III excommunicated them, and 1172 they headed for Rome to seek absolution from the pope. It is thought that they were probably sent on crusade, and either died on their way, or in battle, although there are a number of unsubstantiated traditions about their ultimate fates.
The Christ Church was closed for nearly a year so that Pope Alexander III could be consulted on how to proceed so that the cathedral could be re-consecrated and returned to normal use, rejuvenated as a destination for pilgrims.
Miracles and legacy
Detail of the Canterbury Christ Church Cathedral miracle window, which shows some of Becket’s miracles. Source: Reverend Mark R Collins blog
Until his death, Becket had been a political creature, and a representative of ecclesiastical interests. He did not position himself as a man of the people, but as a newly inspired champion of the rights of the Church. This did not prevent the place of his death becoming a destination for pilgrims of all social scales, even before he was officially canonized. Curiously, Becket was not merely an emblem of devotion to the Church and a promoter of its rights in the face of opposition from the Crown, but a saint who produced miracles for the everyday person, becoming an unlikely saint to act on behalf of the general populace.
The first miracles reported following the death of Becket took place at his tomb. Hundreds of others soon followed, 703 being reported within the first 10 years, many recorded by Benedict of Peterborough. Within twenty years of the murder, no less than twenty biographies had been written about the saint including contemporary accounts including, for example, those by John of Salisbury, Edward Grim and Benedict of Peterborough, the latter listing many of his miracles. Images of him in various media appeared all over Europe, and his relics spread just as far. As the Oxford History of Saints comments laconically, “His faults were forgotten and he was hailed as a martyr for the cause of Christ and the liberty of the Church.” In short, Becket and the miracles associated with him went viral.
Fifty years after his death, a new shrine was opened with great ceremony, and St Thomas was moved into a new tomb within the shrine. It was a spectacle of gold and precious gems, and was surrounded by stained glass windows telling the story of his life and miraculous works. At the height of its popularity, it attracted over 100,000 pilgrims a year. In the Jubilee year of 1420 the shrine earned £360 for Canterbury Cathedral, which equates today to around £231,483, which could have purchased 83 horses or 620 cows (data from the National Archive’s Currency Convertor) or could have been used to build a new section of cathedral. Images and symbols of St Thomas were moulded into ampullae and badges for the hundreds of pilgrims who visited his Canterbury shrine. The shrine no longer survives; it was destroyed in 1538 under the orders of Henry VIII.
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The Becket boss at St Werburgh’s Abbey
The Lady Chapel
The Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral
St Werburgh’s Abbey featured many architectural-sculptural elements which embellish the core structure of the building, providing focal points, colour and a hint of glamour. The Lady Chapel was built under Abbot Simon de Whitchurch (1265-1291). In Burne’s words, “He was evidently an outstanding character and under him the abbey flourished exceedingly.” It was a period of great prosperity for the abbey, with an income derived from, amongst other things, church pensions (a sort of tax), appropriated church tithes, gifts of houses and lands, and possibly pilgrimage to the reliquary-shrine of St Werburgh, although the new shrine to the saint was not built until the 14th century, and it is unclear how important it was as a pilgrim destination before then.
Although the earliest known Lady Chapel predates the Norman invasion, the Lady Chapel became particularly important in the 13th century when the Virgin Mary was undergoing a resurgence of devotion. The elegant, vaulted Lady Chapel St Werburgh’s was built in the 13th century. Like most Lady Chapels it was built to the east of the High Altar, projecting from the main building. Here clerics performed daily services to the Virgin Mary. It is easy to forget that most architectural elements would have been brightly painted, but the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral, restored to a typical colour scheme of green, blue, red and gold in the 1960s, provides an excellent example of how these components would have looked. The lancet windows at the end of the chapel date to 1869, when Gilbert Scott removed the later Perpendicular window to be more faithful to the 13th century vision.
The Holy Trinity, with God holding the arms of the crucifix in his hands
Some Lady Chapels are large and ornate, but in some cases they form smaller, more private and tranquil spaces than other chapels within a monastery or cathedral. The Chester example is delectable, its small footprint and relative height giving a sense of both intimacy and space. The reconstructed shrine of St Werburgh, a victim of the Reformation’s hostility to reliquaries and idolatry, is located at its east end, but according to Jessica Hodge was probably originally at the east end of the quire.
The ceiling bosses form a row across the centre of the chapel, from east to west. The east end was symbolically the most sacred, and it is at the east end of the chapel that the ceiling boss showing the Holy Trinity is located. In the centre is, the Virgin Mary is depicted, and at the west end is the Becket boss. The chapel was created during a period of great religious significance during the reign of Henry III, who had been crowned for the second time in 1220, the same year in which Becket’s remains were moved to a custom-built shrine on July 7th 1220, reinvigorating the already vibrant cult. The spectacular event was used by both the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, and the king to help to heal the ongoing rift between the Church and the king. In 1225 Henry ratified the Magna Carta, granting the freedom of the Church. This was a momentous decade in the Church’s history and religious houses throughout Medieval England rode the crest of this remarkable period during the rest of the century with new architectural projects, rebuilding, expanding and celebrating. By 1260-1280 when the Chester Lady Chapel was built, it was the centenary of Becket’s death. It is possible that the Becket boss was installed to commemorate this event following an ecclesiastically bright start to the century.
The St Thomas ceiling boss
Ceiling bosses are both architectural and sculptural elements, usually circular or sub-circular, positioned in the ceiling where the vaulting ribs that form arches meets, either to hide the join, or acting as keystones to add structural integrity to the complex set of tensions and stresses. There can be much more to them than first glance suggests, and behind the decorated end, an undecorated portion of the boss may be inserted into the join. Examples on the floor of the cloisters provide a good idea of this, showing the decorated section that would face down, and the plain stump that would be inserted into the join.
Three relatively large stone vaulting bosses were provided at the point where seven or eight stone ribs of the slender vaulting meets, each carved and painted with a different aspect of Christian iconography. Smaller bosses were also added to at vault joins, where three or four ribs meet, sculpted into beautiful foliage, and gilded. Corbels, where the vaulting ribs begin, are also decorated with foliage. These carved stone features would all have been carved and painted prior to installation. The white painted ceiling and walls between the brightly coloured features are the perfect foil for them, providing them with reflected light and emphasizing the rich colours.
The Becket scene offers a sanitized version of the traumatic event on 29th December 1170, recycling a scene that bears only a passing resemblance to the terrible violence of reality, one version of a standardized formula for representing this event, an overstuffed and static little scene that looks rather like a posed portrait, with all of the protagonists shown full face, as though looking towards a camera. The composition is curious. Three knights dominate the scene. Sir Reginald FitzUrse is identifiable, as he is in the Exeter ceiling boss of this scene, by the bear’s head on his shield. One knight at the front strikes at Becket’s head. At the back of the group is clerk Edward Grim holding a cross and appears to preside over the scene. Becket is squashed into the lower right hand section of the scene, kneeling behind an altar, his hands held, palms outwards, in front of him. Behind him, even more squashed and barely visible, is the fourth knight, striking at Becket’s head, his sword converging with the sword of the knight in the foreground. In spite of all four swords, the most dynamic element of the scene is the way in which Becket’s hands are raised in front of him, either in prayer, supplication or in a gesture of surrender.
By contrast, the Exeter ceiling boss, which Burne says is about a century later, makes rather more compositional sense, placing Becket at the centre of the scene, looking out at the viewer with his hands raised, whilst the knights crowd in on him, intent on their deadly purpose while Grim does his best to ward them off. It has far more dramatic impact, and is easier to understand as a narrative. Both bosses share the same formulaic approach to the event.
When the chapel was built between c.1260 and 1280, over a century had passed since the martyrdom of Becket, and the detail of the real event had become less important than its symbolism and the theological narrative built around it. Becket shown praying in front of an altar conveyed the sense of Becket’s purity and holiness far more efficiently than the actual scene of anger, shouting and resistance that preceded the murder. Similarly, the Grim was not a cross-bearer clerk. However, there is an obvious dramatic advantage to showing him holding the cross as he confronted the knights in support of Becket. It remains a peculiarity of the scene that the knights and Grim are the central characters, whilst Becket is squeezed to the side.
Who was the intended audience?
Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral
In the 13th century the eastern end of the abbey church was the exclusive domain of the abbey monks, and it is unlikely that the Lady Chapel was seen by anyone else. By the 14th century, the pilgrim status of Chester, with the miraculous holy rood in St John’s, and nearby pilgrim destinations at Holywell and St Asaph, lead to a reinvigorated interest in the Anglo-Saxon St Werburgh. A new shrine to St Werburgh was built in the 1300s and according to Jessica Hodge, was situated at the east end of the quire, presumably accessed via the nave and the north aisle. Pilgrims to the shrine would therefore have been granted access to the usually private east end, and they may have been shown the neighbouring Lady Chapel and the Becket boss as part of their pilgrimage. Some of them may have included a visit to the Nunnery of St Mary in their travels, which possessed a relic in the form of the girdle of Thomas Becket.
Lady Chapel corbel
When they were new, the monks would have been well aware of the subject matter of the ceiling bosses. As time went by they may have been repainted and repaired, but there will have been periods when they receded into the background. Even today, people don’t always look up, and even when they do, they are not always sure what they are looking at. Even if access had been generally available, the ceiling bosses are so high up that it is difficult to see the detail without either a telephoto lens or a ladder. When I was last there, I pointed the Becket boss out to a lady who asked what I was photographing, and the only way that she could make it out, even with her distance glasses on, was to see the enlarged image on the screen of my digital camera. Similarly, I only really got to grips with the subject matter on the other two bosses by photographing them and bringing them up on my computer screen later.
If one factors in the available lighting in the Middle Ages, which was confined to any light that passed through the stained glass windows, supplemented by candles, it is unlikely that these bosses were generally very visible from the ground. Compare them with those in the enclosed walkway (cloister), which are much closer to the ground and therefore much easier to appreciate.
Why were images of Becket purged during the 16th century?
The Becket boss prior to restoration. Source: Godfrey W. Matthews, The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester Cathedral
Chester became a cathedral after the Benedictine monastery of St Werburgh was dissolved by Henry VIII. In spite of this lucky escape, it is possible that the ceiling boss was deliberately defaced at this time. Godfrey W Matthews, writing in 1934, described it as follows: “It is very badly worn, which is curious, as the two bosses to the east of it are in a good state of reservation. It is possible that some attempt had been made to deface it, for the figures suggest chipping.” Henry VIII imposed a policy of extreme prejudice against Becket, ordering all images of him to be destroyed. The tomb and pilgrim shrine in Canterbury were removed in 1538 and Becket’s mortal remains disposed of. Images throughout the country were removed.
Chester Cathedral also came under fairly savage review during the Reformation, when various architectural features and monuments were maimed or destroyed to remove overtly Catholic themes. Most of the survivors are in high places that were difficult to reach.
Are ceiling bosses works of art, or mere architectural flourishes?
Stonemason, artist and researcher Alex Woodcock, whose PhD focuses on Exeter stone sculptures, highlights how the bright colours and dark shadows at Exeter were contrasted to give reveal a sense of depth and to emphasise the three dimensional character of the bosses and corbels. This can be seen at Chester as well, where the depth of the three dimensional aspect of the sculpted forms provides a sense of theatre and allows simple shapes to be very skilfully highlighted. Woodcock points out that architectural sculpture “is often assumed to be secondary to free-standing sculpture, possibly because of its very architectural function” and that because the boss would have been there anyway, the images are seen less as art than mere decoration. As he points out, however, “in terms of the hours needed to complete the carving using hand tools, their production would appear almost prohibitive in terms of expense today.” Not all ceiling bosses and corbels are good art, but many of them are tremendous and well worth the time taken to appreciate them as stand-alone works.
Final Comments
The Lady Chapel in the 1870s. Source: Blomfield 1879
Most of us learned a version of the “turbulent priest” story at school. This was a man who stirred up hornets’ nests in his role as Archbishop of Canterbury, both within the royal court and within the cathedral. He divided opinion in his own lifetime, finding friends and making enemies. His immediate legacy was to generate a healthy income for Canterbury Cathedral, as pilgrims flocked to share in the wonders of the miracle-worker. Politically, he became an ongoing reminder of the conflict between royalty and the Church, a symbol not merely of spiritual martyrdom, but carried with him a morality tale about the dangers of the crown having absolute power over both the church and the people.
On a vaulting boss in Chester Cathedral, accompanied by the Virgin Mary and the Holy Trinity, Becket and his murderers look down on the visitor. Representing a scene of appalling violence, Becket, Grim and the errant knights are a reminder that throughout the early Middle Ages, the Church and the King were equally powerful, and serious conflicts ran the risk of monstrous outcomes.
After nearly 400 years of popularity, Becket and his legacy were terminally undermined by Henry VIII and the Reformation, destroying his images in cathedral, church, monastery and private residence. Queen Mary briefly restored both Catholicism and Becket’s status, but Elizabeth I followed her father’s lead. Although Becket is remembered today, the split from the papacy and the tidal wave of the Reformation swept away his significance and his popularity in Britain. Having said that, the lady I was chatting to in the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral told me that in the congregation of her Liverpool Anglo-Catholic church they follow the missal, and continue to commemorate the date of Becket’s murder. Although he survives mainly as a historical figure, Thomas Becket has not vanished from view.
Sources:
Books and papers
Bartlett, R. 2013. Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things? Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation. Princeton University Press
de Beer, Lloyd, and Speakman, Naomi 2021. Thomas Becket, Murder and the Making of a Saint. The Trustees of the British Museum
Blomfield, Reverend Canon 1859. On the Lady Chapel in Chester Cathedral. Courant Office. Digitized by Project Gutenberg
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/61922/61922-h/61922-h.htm
Burne, R.V.H. 1962. The Monks of Chester. The History of St Werburgh’s Abbey. SPCK.
Crouch, D. 2017. Medieval Britain, c.1000-1500. Cambridge University Press
Farmer, D. 2011 (5th edition). The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. Oxford University Press
Guy, J. 2013. Thomas Becket. Warrior, Priest, Rebel, Victim. A 900-Year-Old Story Retold. Penguin
de Hamel, C. 2020. The Book in the Cathedral. The Last Relic of Thomas Becket. Allen Lane
Hamilton, B. 2003. Religion in the Medieval West. Arnold.
Hamilton, S. 2021. Responding to Violence: Liturgy, Authority and Sacred Places c.900-c.1150. Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 2021, 31 (202), p.23-47.
Hodge, Jessica 2017. Chester Cathedral. Scala Arts and Heritage
Jenkins, J. 2023. Who Put the ‘a’ in ‘Thomas a Becket? The History of a Name from the Angevins to the Victorians, Open Library of Humanities 9(1) https://olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/9353/
Luxford, Julian 2005. The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries, 1300-1540. A Patronage History. The Boydell Press p.21-27
Matthews, G.W. The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester. Historic Society of Lancaster and Cheshire 86, 1934, p.41-46
Orme, N. 2017. The History of England’s Cathedrals. Impress
Schmoelz, M. 2017. Pilgrimage in medieval East Anglia. A regional survey of the shrines and pilgrimages of Norfolk, Suffolk, volume 1. Unpublished PhD thesis, University of East Anglia, June 2017
Webster, P. 2016. Introduction. The Cult of St Thomas Becket: An Historiographical Pilgrimage. In Gelin, M and Webster P. (eds.) The Cult of St Thomas Becket in the Plantagenet World, c.1170-1220. Boydell and Brewer.
Williams, Godfrey W. 1934. The Becket Boss in the Lady Chapel, Chester. Historic Society of Lancaster and Cheshire 86, 1934, p.41-46
Woodcock, A. 2018 (2nd edition). Of Sirens and Centaurs. Medieval Sculpture at Exeter Cathedral. Impress Books
Websites
British Museum
A Timeline of Thomas Becket’s Life and Legacy
https://www.britishmuseum.org/exhibitions/thomas-becket-murder-and-making-saint/timeline-thomas-beckets-life-and-legacy
Who Killed Thomas Becket? (by curators Lloyd de Beer and Naomi Speakman)
https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/who-killed-thomas-becket
Museum of London
Thomas Becket: a life and death in badges. By Kirstin Barnard. 13th February 2020
https://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/thomas-becket-life-and-death-badges#/
Smithsonian Magazine
Researchers Digitally Reconstruct Thomas Becket’s Razed Canterbury Cathedral Shrine. By Meilan Solly. 9th July 2020.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/researchers-digitally-reconstruct-thomas-beckets-lost-canterbury-cathedral-shrine-180975280/
Although quite literally freezing cold, the sun was stunning yesterday so on the spur of the moment, having just run an errand to Rossett, I plotted a route to the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port on the Wirral. It’s very easy to find, being just off the M53. I have been meaning to visit ever since I moved to this area. It is one of those places best done in dry weather, because there is as just as much, if not more, to see outside as indoors. Visitor information details are at the end.
The museum occupies the 19th century canal and port complex, re-using the lovely brick-built buildings for exhibits and displays and using sections of the docks and basins for a number of fascinating canal and waterway vessels. Ellesmere Port was the largest Inland Waterway dock complex in the United Kingdom. The name Ellesmere Port refers to the town of Ellesmere, where many of the decisions about the Shropshire Union canal network were made. There was no Ellesmere Port until the port was established in 1796 as a small base at the Mersey end of the Shropshire Union Canal.
The Shropshire Union Canal was one of a number of canals built at different times which, in 1846, were amalgamated into a single operational network. The earliest part of this network was the Nantwich to Canal section. The earliest part of the system was the Chester Canal which ran from Chester to Nantwich in 1772. It was not until 1793 that a section connecting Chester to the Mersey was built, with its terminus at Ellesmere Port. The section from Nantwich to Birmingham, the Birmingham and Liverpool Junction Canal, was the main north-south artery of this network, and was not completed until 1835, joining the national canal network for which Birmingham was the central hub.
By 1802 as well as a series of locks with a lock keeper’s house, there was also three basins, wet and dry docks, a small wharf, a clerk’s house and a canal lighthouse. Over subsequent decades additional wharves were added and warehouses, workshops and sheds were built. A scheme by Thomas Telford for a dock and entrance for seagoing vessels was completed in 1843, significantly improving the port’s suitability for transhipping. During the 1850s the most important cargo was iron, followed by ceramics from the Potteries, and substantial facilities were provided for both.
The opening of the Manchester Ship Canal in 1894, and the simultaneous improvement in facilities at Ellesmere Port significantly improved the prosperity of the port. Unfortunately this was something of a swansong for the canal port, and In 1921 the Shropshire Union Canal Company sold its fleet of barges and the commercial viability of the canal and the port for freight handling came to an end. The railways replaced the canals throughout Britain, with many of the former wharves and ports falling into disuse and dereliction. Ellesmere Port managed to survive until the 1950s and became a museum in the 1970s.
The derelict port buildings became a museum in the 1970s after a heroic effort by a group of volunteers, and is now a conservation area with nineteen Grade II listed buildings. It was originally known as the North West Museum of Inland Navigation and had various other names until it became The National Waterways Museum, with its emphasis on inland waterways, both rivers and canals, although coastal vessels are also included. As well as boats and exhibition and display spaces, the site is also home to the Waterways Archive, and education centre, conference facilities, a shop and café and other amenities, all located within the port buildings.
The big former warehouse, called the Island Warehouse, has displays on two floors. The ground floor is a vast collection of objects connected to the waterways, including bits of engine, windlasses, tillers, rudders, sack barrows, buckets and lamps and a zillion other objects, parts and bits. There’s very little information on display, although a QR code promised more details about some of the objects via your smartphone (I had left mine in the car by accident).
The first floor is a more formal exhibition area. There is a cut-away narrowboat called Friendship with its painted bow and stern and a tiny little cabin, the unimaginably small living quarters of the narrowboat’s operator and his family. A delightful pleasure boat, the 1954 Amaryllis, glows with glossy mahogany and polished brass. My favourite was an example of a long, slender boat called a “starvationer,” designed to run on the 46 miles (74km) of subterranean canal tunnels in the Duke of Bridgewater’s Worsley coal mines. Other cabinets have model boats and ships showing a range of different types and sizes. A couple of cabinets have examples of canal art associated with narrowboats. Items commonly found in the dock and canal port are included. There’s even a working model of the Anderton Boat Lift. Information boards provide plenty of detail.
Out on the other side of this building, back outside, there are more boats. Some of the boats that are usually out in the summer are under cover for winter, still visible but not as accessible. This is particularly true of the valuable wooden narrowboats like Gifford and the ice-breaker Marbury. Being under cover, they are also easier to work on. The ongoing care and repair of wooden boats is a major part of the out of season work at the museum, and there information boards explaining what is being done to each.
Heading back, the next place to visit is Porters Row, four terraced houses, each one fitted out with furniture, accessories, wallpaper, technology and kitchen equipment that would have been found in dock workers’ homes of the 1830s, 1900s, 1920s and 1950s. This is such fun, a really evocative way of getting a sense of how past objects were deployed in ordinary homes, although some were clearly more prosperous than others, one with a piano, and more remarkably one with a organ!
Crossing to the other side of the port, there is another set of buildings that includes the old stables (for the horses that pulled the unpowered narrowboats), the blacksmith’s forge (still operational), and the Power Hall, which is a display of ship engines, one of which can be operated via a push-button.
Back up towards the exit is a sign pointing you to the slipway with its blue-painted wooden winch house, and from here you can see over to the channel that connects the Manchester Ship Canal to the River Weaver and Ellesmere Port. When you leave the museum, you can turn left along the road that passes between the museum and the car park, and walk along the channel’s edge towards the Holiday Inn, where there are some great swing bridges and more canal-side buildings, including a unique port lighthouse.
A dry day is preferable for a visit, because there is a lot to see outside, and the buildings themselves are part of the attraction. Opening times are on the Canal and River Trust website here. At the time of writing (January 2024) the entrance fee was £11.75 for an adult, which seems quite steep but the ticket lasts for a year, and I will certainly be making use of mine for another visit. Other entrance fees are on the museum’s website on the above link. There is a nicely presented shop with books, toys and canal-themed ornaments, and a bright, comfortable café. Outside there are plenty of picnic benches, and a play area. The museum was amazingly quiet. Given the bright sunshine I thought that it would be fairly busy, but the cold was obviously a deterrent, the docks being frozen solid.
I was warned at the ticket office about icy surfaces, which takes on a particular resonance when you are walking along the edges of frozen expanses of water with almost no-one around. But they had done such a good job with the salt and grit that even in the cold shadows there was no ice on which to slip.
Based in Churton 
