Despite living around 15 miles or so from Winchester Cathedral all my life, I’d never been inside it until today. Whilst looking for details of their carol services, I noticed that they were offering tours of the tower, limited to 12 people only.

There’s 213 narrow steps on a steep spiral staircase barely a little wider than my shoulders to get to this small viewing platform. This is looking generally west. The tall building on the skyline is the Hampshire Police HQ and the building just left of centre with the clock tower on it is the main office of Hampshire County Council. Part of the roof of the nave, the longest in Europe, of the cathedral can be seen; our route back down took us through the roof space. Our guide was the lady with the red collar. The remains of yesterday’s light snow covering can be seen in places.

This is the ice rink in the Cathedral Garth alongside Winchester Cathedral and is extremely popular selling out some weeks ago. There are signs around it saying that “Cousens Entertainment has a policy of strictly no photography”; interesting I’m sure but no-one was taking any notice of it! I should have stuck up my own sign saying “Alan has a policy of treating stupid and pointless policies with contempt”. The Cathedral’s Christmas Market is in the many little wooden huts. This view was part of our tower tour; behind me is the roof over the nave (we had just walked through the roof space) and we are on top of the clerestories which run either side of it.