The Sixteen's Blog

Harry Christophers and Petroc Trelawny

I missed the first half of last night’s BBC Radio 3 broadcast of our Choral Pilgrimage programme (travelling back from the Southbank Centre’s launch of their celebration of the Festival of Britain in which The Sixteen is doing a “Massive Messiah” with some 750 singers on Saturday 14 May), but you can still hear it on iPlayer.  The programme was presented by Petroc Trelawny, seen here with Harry Christophers outside Sherborne Abbey.  The second half of the concert can also be heard here for the next six days.

Sherborne Abbey is one of the many amazing buildings we visit each year: ‘when people look at the Abbey, they see different things. Some see the finest building in Dorset, with its glorious fan vaulting – of which Simon Jenkins says in his book England’s Thousand Best Churches,

“I would pit Sherborne’s roof against any contemporary work of the Italian Renaissance.”

Others see a place renowned for its choir and its music and its bells – the heaviest peal of eight bells in the world. Some see thirteen centuries of history, ever since St Aldhelm, new bishop of the West Saxons, chose to build his cathedral here. Tradition certainly runs like a stream through the Abbey. Two Saxon kings are buried here; for over 800 years the chanting of Benedictine monks filled the air. Thomas Wyatt, Tudor courtier and poet, has his grave here; Sir Walter Raleigh worshipped here.’ (See the full history here).  Here is a splendid photo of the famous bells, taken by one of our team yesterday.

Sherborne Abbey bells