Would I like to spend 11 months visiting 30 cathedrals across the UK and write 4 books about them?

Ever since I moved to the UK at the start of the millennium, I have been fascinated by cathedrals. The power, the glory and the majesty of them. Their sheer size and bulk. Their unbroken link with the past, back to the Middle Ages and Roman times and, even before that, to Pagan times and prehistory when the sites of today’s magnificent buildings were shrines and places of ritual.

Cathedrals are the oldest buildings in continuous use in their communities. They are a living link with our ancient past and with the lives of the people who have gone before us. But most of all, they are filled with stories. And it was mainly those stories that fascinated me.

So, getting a commission to write about 30 of the greatest cathedrals in Britain in a series of four books was my dream job. I didn’t even care when my arthritic hip packed up two weeks before I was due to start which meant I had to do the journey on crutches.

Starting in Scotland and the north of England, one of the main seats of ecclesiastical power in the country (book 1), I travelled south as far the coast and the only cathedral that can be seen from the sea (book 2). I went right through the centre of the country, to some of the most famous cathedrals of all (book 3), and finished up heading west, all the way into Wales (book 4) and the smallest cathedral in the UK.

As well as the cathedrals, I wrote about the cities that grew up around them, unravelling history and finding out what makes them great today. It was a fantastic project to work on – even on crutches.

I visited Ely Cathedral early in 2017. While I was there, I saw a touring exhibition by photographer Peter Marlow called ‘The English Cathedral’. These 42 photographs of the naves of 42 cathedrals of the Church of England were all shot from the same position, looking east towards the altar, as dawn broke through the main window.

Sadly, Peter had died the year before, following complications from an illness, but before he died had published a book of his cathedral photographs, writing in the introduction: ‘How many times a year do you wake up excited by what is going to happen that day? I felt that way on my cathedral days.’

And, as I got up in the morning on my own ‘cathedral days’, I felt it too. Excited to find out more about the stories that have shaped these mighty buildings and their mixed and sometimes magical, often bloody, histories. Excited to explore the cathedral cities. And to go on a magical journey.

Book 1: Cathedrals of Britain: North of England and Scotland

York
York Minster is one of the biggest Medieval Gothic cathedrals in northern Europe and holds half of all the Medieval stained-glass in England. As the Mother Church of the Northern Province, it’s one of Britain’s most important spiritual centres and the seat not only of a bishop but an archbishop. It costs £20,000 a day to run and employs a full-time staff of 200, including thirty permanent glaziers and stonemasons, as well as 500 volunteers.

Durham
Durham Cathedral was founded in 1093 when the Byzantine empire was in its heyday, the Nubian kingdom was at the peak of its power and Vikings were still roaming Europe. Today the Byzantines are gone and Vikings confined to fancy dress parties, but Durham Cathedral still stands and its soaring architecture remains, in the words of Sir Walter Scott, ‘Half church of God, half castle ‘gainst the Scot’.

Ripon
Ripon cathedral may hold the body of one of the greatest early saints of England and might just have provided the inspiration for one of the best-known books in the English language. But we do know this for sure. While this is not the oldest church building in the UK, the 7th-century crypt at Ripon dates from 672 and predates every existing cathedral in the country.

Wakefield
The spire of Wakefield Cathedral is the tallest in Yorkshire. At 75 metres, it dominates the skyline for miles around. But the honour of marking the area as a place of Christian worship for 1,000 years goes to a much smaller and humbler monument. So humble, in fact, it was discovered being used as a lowly doorstep in a barber’s shop in Westgate back in the 1800s.

Sheffield
Political intrigue and power struggles. Royal prisoners. England’s most famous cardinal on the run. A queen in bondage. Sheffield has seen it all and the cathedral has been central to much of the action. But if you view cathedrals as remote lofty spaces, standing apart from modern times and outside contemporary culture, a visit to Sheffield may cure you.

Bradford
The entry for Bradford in the Domesday Book, 1086 merely records ‘Ilbert hath it. It is waste’. But from those inauspicious beginnings, Bradford has grown from a crossing place that became a market to an important industrial town and multi-cultural city. And the city’s cathedral, which received its status in 1919, reflects this history throughout the building with its memorials, shrines and stories.

St Giles, Edinburgh
A place of worship for nearly 900 years, St Giles Cathedral has played a tumultuous part in Scottish history and has been a legendary scene of revolts and reconciliations. Today, as well as being Edinburgh’s chief seat of worship and a spiritual centre for the community, it holds a special place within its walls for royalty. And dogs.

St Machar’s, Aberdeen
It had an auspicious beginning but has also been the site of much destruction and dispute, attacked by wars, the Reformation and the weather. It’s thought to be the final resting place for Scotland’s famous hero William Wallace. Well, part of him at least. It’s said that in 1305 the left quarter of his body was brought to Aberdeen after his grisly execution in London by Edward I and interred within the wall of the new cathedral.

Cathedrals of Britain: North of England and Scotland by Bernadette Fallon is published by Pen and Sword books, £12.99, get more information