Skip to main content

Sheffield Cathedral: dogs and lions welcome

Earlier in the day I had caught the train up from Derby and visited Rotherham Minster. The Supertram from Rotherham brought me to Sheffield Cathedral just as the clock struck two.


I realised as I left the tram that I had totally forgotten my cathedral passport until now. Rotherham may not have had a stamp anyway, though I probably could have got the vicar's signature or something, but I dug the passport out of my bag to be sure to remember it.

The shop had a stamp, I was told, and so it did. Formalities completed, I went to explore Sheffield Cathedral.


It's a strange jumble of a building; "one of those forever unfinished places" as an architectural journal describes it. This view along the church towards the east end makes it look pretty standard - a medieval chancel and a Victorian-renovated nave. But if you turn ninety degrees to the north, there is another long axis - a regimental chapel that leads through to the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. At one point in the 1930s there were plans to reorientate the whole church in that direction, so St George's Chapel would have been the new nave. World War II intervened and it never happened.

along the nave

St George's Chapel

At the west end is the most distinctive feature of the modern cathedral - the stunning stained-glass lantern, added in the 1960s. There's a cafe next to the regimental chapel, The main entrance and shop are on the opposite side. I found the colour-coded model helpful to figure out how it all fitted together.

crown of thorns lantern

entrance and shop


Much of the floor was relaid in 2014 to provide level access and underfloor heating, and the rather nice oak benches were also added at that time. I'm sure the dogs approve.


Dogs were not the only animals roaming Sheffield Cathedral that day. There were lion cubs in the nave, and adult lions outside. Trails of painted statues have gone from exciting novelties to boringly familiar, but it has to be said this one is particularly extensive. There are 300 felines all over South Yorkshire, raising funds for the Sheffield Children's Hospital Charity. And yes, someone has completed that particular checklist already!



The minimalist font and a nativity scene are both steel, created by Brian Fell to commemorate Sheffield's steel industry. The bishop's throne is gilded oak with pretty floral designs.




And a crypt is tucked away underneath St George's Chapel - a serene space with a burst of colour in the corner.



I stayed for Evening Prayer at 3pm. Only three of us attended: the celebrant, a member of the cathedral staff who read one of the lessons, and myself. The vicar prayed that the demonstrations happening that day in the city would be peaceful. I hadn't even realised they were going on.

by the River Don

By this point my head ached and I was feeling decidedly queasy. I wondered whether I should just head for a train, but I'd agreed to meet my cousin Vicky, and I didn't want to miss that. She gave me a short and enthusiastic tour of the city. We fed pigeons in the Peace Gardens and had a cold drink in a gigantic greenhouse lined with shops. There was much more to Sheffield than I'd realised, but I'm not sure I appreciated it very well. I think I managed a coherent conversation.

Peace Gardens


The 6:00 train was delayed due to points failure. I got on anyway, and sat limply in a seat until it decided it would go, but not stop at Derby. So I dragged myself over to the 7:00 train, which finally left at 8:00 and made its way to Derby on the regular route. Graham picked me up from the station. I was sick in the car on the way home.

Sheffield Cathedral 13 June 2026

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mr White Watson of Bakewell

Once upon a time, back in 1795 or so, lived a man who was always asking questions.  The kind of questions like, "Why is glass transparent?" or "Why do fruit trees grow better in that place than in this place?" or "What does the earth look like underneath the surface?"  This last question was one that he was particularly interested in, and he went so far as to work out what the rock layers looked like where he lived, and draw little pictures of them.  Now he was a marble sculptor by trade (as well as fossil hunter, mineral seller, and a few other things) so he thought it would be even better to make his little pictures in stone.  That way he could represent the layers using the actual rocks they were composed of.  Over the course of his lifetime he made almost 100 of these tablets, as he called them. Then he died.  And no one else was quite as interested in all those rocks and minerals as he was.  His collection was sold off, bit by bit, and the table...
Post a Comment
Read more

Growing things

For those of you who are interested in my attempts at balcony gardening, I thought I'd update you a little. For those who aren't, don't skip this post. You may find something else of interest. Apart from the ever-present herbs, tomatoes and cayenne peppers are on the go this year. The peppers are really on the go - we went away for a week and came back to find them twice the size as when we left. Now they're producing fruit which is growing at a similarly rapid rate, though none has ripened to red yet. I realised I should have given you some kind of scale, so I just went out and measured. They're about 22 cm long, or 8 1/2 inches for you non-metric types. I may have to find out how to dry peppers if they all ripen at once. A couple of tomato plants are looking pretty healthy and beginning to flower. A few died; one, apparently, by being eaten whole by a bird, a trouble I've never had before. I had two seedlings left so used those as replacements, b...
2 comments
Read more

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu...
5 comments
Read more