Cambridge: The Round Church I

      Cambridge and the limit of our wandering, the church of the Holy Sepulchre, aka The Round Church. The second theme of my trip away, churches with round naves.  They are as rare as hen's teeth in England, there only being four left.   A fifth example, the chapel of Ludlow Castle, is in ruins.  There is one, in ruins, in Scotland (though there is mention of one at Roxburgh but I can't find any corroboration of that) and none in Wales as far as I know.  These structures were built as mimetic representations of the church of the Anastasis in Jerusalem (known as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the West)

   This particular example dates from 1130s onwards.  It consists of two parts: the circular nave, and the chancel with n & s aisles. A bit on the dull side, the latter. The rotunda is Norman, and the east end was remodelled in the 15th century, when a bell stage was also added atop the nave clearstory.  In the midst of the 19th century the church was given a thorough going over by Anthony Salvin (1799-1881).  His reconstruction of the nave may not be entirely accurate but is visually satisfying.