Grahamstown : Cathedral of St Michael and St George

We arrived at the Cathedral of St Michael and St George is in Church Square in Grahamstown at about 16:30 on Sunday for the Choral Evensong service.  While waiting for the service to begin we took pictures of the beautiful cathedral with its high tower.















There were only a few people at the service.  We enjoyed the beautiful organ music and the enthusiastic sermon by a student.  The inside of the cathedral is beautiful and we on Monday morning it was our first stop.
The building of this church started in 1824 but it was only finished in 1952.  The church was opened for use in 1830 and became a cathedral in 1853. The tower was added in 1878.

On Monday morning we arrived at the church at about 9:00.  We entered the cathedral and took an information pamphlet at the door.  There was a cleaning lady working when we visited.  She was very sweet and wanted to show us everything.


The Annunciation

Great East Window

 




















The cathedral has lovely stained glass windows.  When the church was designed the windows was made slightly narrower than usual.  This was to ensure that the lighting is the same as in English cathedrals even with the South Africa’s brighter sunlight.
There are also a lot of memorial plates on the walls for members of the church who died in the different wars.  One of the artists who made the memorials carved three mice into the wood.  It was fun to search for them.  I will only show a picture of one mouse.  The other you will have to go find yourself.














With the changes in South Africa in 1994 some of the wording on the memorials were no longer acceptable.  At first the church wanted to take the plaques of but later decided to keep them and just block out these words.

We spent about 1½ hour in the cathedral and really enjoyed the visit. It is amazing how much history each old church and chathedral hold about the towns they stand in.  
Location: Grahamstown, South Africa

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