Having been taking pictures inside churches for a long time now, I’m no longer surprised at how ‘un-straight’ and misaligned things often are. Sometimes, it’s just the Altar Guild not ensuring the cross is centered, but often, major installations — such as the altar itself — are a few inches out or the whole building, the chancel in Christ Episcopal Church, Springfield, is a great example — the chancel was built separately and is six or more inches out of line with the nave).

Why do I bring this up? Well, if you look up in Selby Abbey, there’s a clear misalignment with the chancel doglegging to the south (right) of the picture relative to the nave. At first, when I noticed it in the picture, I thought it was lens distortion, but, I checked with my own eyes. Sure, enough I couldn’t get things to line up.

For the picture I aligned the top of the cross on the rood screen with the center line of the chancel roof. Notice how I am way off to the left of the aisle from my vantage point near the back of the nave.

Day Thirty

Selby Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey and current Anglican parish church in Selby, North Yorkshire.

Yesterday, we drove down from Glasgow to Selby, taking a route across the Pennines that we had not taken before. The scenery was wonderful, but we didn’t stop for pictures, we just enjoyed the view as we drove through.

Today we met up with another of Ginger’s community members, and while they chatted I took some pictures of Selby Abbey. Well, actually, they chatted the day through, and I left them to it, went back to the hotel, and went out for a run at RSPB Fairburn Ings. 🙂 Tomorrow, we head back to Portsmouth.