Winchester Cathedral

Winchester Cathedral is one of the great English churches — at 170 metres from end to end, it is the longest medieval cathedral in Europe, and it has been at the centre of Winchester's life since the 7th century. The building you see today is mostly Norman and early Gothic, with the nave — one of the finest Perpendicular interiors in England — completed in the early 15th century.

The bones of Saxon kings are here, in mortuary chests set above the presbytery screen. Jane Austen is buried in the north aisle, marked by a simple black stone that makes no mention of her being a novelist. The Winchester Bible, a 12th-century illuminated manuscript of extraordinary quality, is displayed in the library — one of the finest surviving examples of Romanesque book art in Europe. The setting is exceptional: the close is enclosed by medieval buildings on three sides and opens to lawns, and the modest scale of the surrounding streets makes the building feel enormous. Allow at least 90 minutes inside.

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A story
In 1905 the cathedral's foundations were found to be sinking into a peat bog. A diver named William Walker spent six years working alone in complete darkness beneath the building, hand-packing the foundations with bags of concrete and brickwork. He worked up to six hours a day underwater. When the foundations were stabilised, the king attended a thanksgiving service and Walker was introduced as "the man who saved the cathedral with his own hands."