Ely Cathedral is one of the finest of all European architectural jewels and its Octagon lantern tower, erected in the 1320s, is a staggering achievement.
The huge octagonal tower, much wider than the original nave crossing which collapsed in the 1320s, leads up to timber fan vaulting that appears to support the glazed timber lantern. Actually, it is held up by a complex timber structure above the vaulting.
The brief (for which there was a design competition) was to replace the liturgical furniture; an altar and its dais, clergy seating, lecterns and prayer desks, choir stalls and choir lighting, conductor’s stand and credence table, all of which had to look permanent yet be capable of being swiftly cleared away.
Luke Hughes’s references started with the Octagon itself, as well as the Romanesque arches of the massive nave, one of the longest in the country. A detailed architectural model was submitted as part of the competition design and, once appointed, a full-scale two-dimensional painted mock-up in plywood was taken to test on site, followed by a full-blown three-dimension version a few months later.
European oak and American black walnut were used for the altar, while the carved and gilded altar rim details are in English lime. The platform structure is a marine plywood frame clad in European oak.
Another major design factor was the colours of the interior, present in the polychromatic stonework, as well as the changing sunlight through the stained glass, projected on the walls. Colour was considered key to make the altar appear as a focal point. Gold leaf seemed to be the appropriate medium, and this was applied by Phil Surey, who gilded the abstract carved figures of writhing eels around the altar’s horizontal edges, brilliantly executed by the Armenian woodcarver, Gyorgy Mkrtchian. In pre- Reformation England, when eating meat on Fridays and holy days was forbidden, the Abbey’s monopoly on the supply of eels certainly added considerably to its source of wealth. Now, even on a dull day, when you enter the nave from the West door, the octagonal altar serves as focal point.
Another critical success factor was to be able to disassemble and remove the entire altar and its platform. Equally crucial was the quality of the engineering of that platform, whose 16 interlocking components and the central segment are almost 9.5m across. Each individual component is small enough to go through the gap between the columns in the north transept. The entire assembly unlocks with a flick of a catch, no tools needed. The choir stalls can be rolled away. As a result, the vergers are now able to move everything each day, sometimes three times a day.
