Winchester’s Lady Chapel

It promises to be a warm day. It’s muggy, but not yet sunny. I’ve had a few flat miles, and I’ve just passed a little sign welcoming me to the South Downs National Park. Downs can only mean one thing: Ups

Just past Vernon Hill House (there’s a clue in the name), Ridge End, and High View (more clues), I’m assailed by an almost overpowering smell of wild garlic. A great bank of it has been strimmed beside the road. Half a mile on, and I meet the strimmer – not someone swinging a whirring thing, but a two-storey tractor that can hardly squeeze between the hedges. It certainly can’t squeeze past me. But it knows the rules; nothing – nothing – takes precedence over a cello on a bike.

And then the most magical thing – a fine treehouse in a fine oak tree. I knock on the door of the nearby house, to find someone to talk treehouse with (or maybe it’s just an excuse to stop). The door’s open; the radio’s on; but I can’t get a response. Ah well.

Quite suddenly, as the day is getting seriously hot, I’m in Winchester. To the consternation of some German visitors, I cycle through the cathedral’s open door, and squeak to a stop. It’s a stylish entrance, I feel.

Ollie, Head of Visitor Experience, with whom I’ve corresponded, congratulates me on being precisely on time. He helps me carry the bike up 11 steps towards the East end of the building, and together we wheel it into the Lady Chapel. Coffee and cake first, I decree, like some kind of rock star, and he takes me to the cafe, recommending the banana and rum cake on the way.

The Lady Chapel is a lovely intimate space, but Andrew, the Canon Treasurer, tells me he’s just come through the West end, and could hear the cello from there.

Frank, from Germany, whom I met two days ago in Chichester, is here, with his very professional camera. He’s in England – and will be in France by the weekend – to take pictures of important windows (and the occasional less important itinerant cellist).

Afterwards there’s so much else to see – a huge screen restored from its Reformation trauma, a 17th century library, the second most ostentatious cathedra I’ve yet seen, the multi-volume 12th century Winchester Bible, another Anthony Gormley sculpture in the crypt, and a pigeon proudly occupying an empty statue niche.

Not forgetting, Ollie told me, the largest medieval nave in the world. He tries hard, but not 100% successfully, not to look offended when I ask him if it’s really bigger than Salisbury’s.