Welcome to my new web page – cathedralquest.com.  Let me introduce myself and tell you about this web page.  

MY LIFE IN NINE SENTENCES 

My name is Thomas Davies Clay.   I was born in Huntington, West Virginia in 1938 and grew up in Ashland, Kentucky - 17 miles from Huntington. I received a B.A. from Marshall University in 1960 and a M.Div. from the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Lexington, Kentucky in 1963.  I was ordained an Episcopal priest on December 1, 1963.   For the next 35 years I served parishes in Richmond, Kentucky; Washington, North Carolina; LaGrange, Georgia; Front Royal, Virginia; and California, Maryland.   I retired from active parish ministry in 1998 at age 60.  Since retirement I have been an interim rector of two parishes in Southern Maryland plus I continue to take Sunday services in area churches when needed.  I  am also Priest Associate at St. James Church in Indian Head, Maryland. In 2000 we built our retirement home in Maryland, fifteen miles south of Washington, D.C. 

A 59 YEAR INTEREST IN CATHEDRALS

One of my favorite memories is that of my first visit to the Washington National Cathedral in 1953.  I was fifteen, and my Great Uncle Oley took me on a C. & O. railroad Cherry Blossom  excursion to Washington from Huntington.  Great Uncle Oley, who never married, was like a grandfather to me.  Both of my grandfathers died the year before I was born.  We rode all night on the train, toured all of Washington including the Washington Cathedral and Mount Vernon and came home that night.

I was awed by the Washington Cathedral which by that time had been in progress for forty-six years with thirty-seven years more before its final completion.  Very little of the nave had been completed at that time.  During my college days, I made several trips to D.C. always with a visit to the cathedral to see the progress.  The years from 1951 to 1986 saw great strides in the construction led by The Very Rev. Francis Sayre Jr, who had become the new Dean.  I remember on one of my college trips sitting in the great choir on Sunday as the Great Litany was sung in procession.  The choir left the chancel and processed around the interior of the church and back to the choir.  I recall that the nave was completed only to the second bay with a tall wooden wall at the west end.

After I was ordained, I was fortunate to attend the College of Preacher on three occasions, traveling from either Kentucky, North Carolina and Georgia.   The College of Preachers, now called the Cathedral College, is located directly behind the cathedral.  These weeklong sessions gave me ample opportunity to explore the cathedral during free times.  It was always thrilling to see the progress.  In 1978, I became Rector of Calvary Church, Front Royal, Virginia which is 65 miles from the cathedral.  Many events of the Diocese of Virginia were held at the Washington Cathedral, which again was a time to renew my enthusiasm for this great building.  It was completed in 1990, but unfortunately I was not able to attend the dedication.   In 1994 I became Rector of St. Andrew’s, near Leonardtown, Maryland.  It was the same distance to the cathedral as from Front Royal.  I was now in the Diocese of Washington.   All the events of the Diocese were held at the cathedral.   So for over fifty years, the Washington National Cathedral has been an extremely important part of my life.   

FIVE WONDER FILLED YEARS AS A DOCENT

In 2002, I read an announcement in the Diocesan newsletter that the cathedral was looking for volunteers to be docents (teaching tour guides).  I thought that this would be a wonderful opportunity to really enjoy this inspiring building.  At this point, I was retired and only lived twenty-five miles away.  

I took the three month course of instruction about every facet of the cathedral. There was a tremendous amount of learning – architecture, history, stained glass windows, various chapels, stone and wood carvings.  We were tested and had to give several trial tours which were critiqued by the cathedral staff.  The first time giving a tour to 50 eighth graders was even more frightening!  It was a fun and rewarding experience giving 30 minute, and sometimes longer, tours three or four times each Wednesday.   During the school year we would often be visited by 25 or more student groups a day from all over the United States plus many adult tour groups as well as walk-in visitors.  School groups were always a challenge!   

It would take a lifetime to see, learn and understand all of the architecture and the art of the Washington Cathedral.  Being a docent was exciting not only being able to share the wonder of the cathedral with visitors, but being able to see and learn or in the case of us senior folks relearning, something new every time we stepped into the wonderment.  I remember Malcom Miller, who has been giving tours at Chartres Cathedral since 1958, saying to us on his wonderful tour of Chartres that he learned something new about Chartres Cathedral every time he gave a tour.  All cathedrals tell wonderful stories in their architecture and art work.  That was one of the reasons for so much stained glass, paintings and sculpture in churches.  When many of the medieval cathedrals were built people couldn’t read and there were not many books, if any available, so they could “read” a stained glass window, a painting or sculpture  and learn a Bible story or about the life of some saint or historic event.  

THE BEAUTIFUL WOOD CARVINGS IN THE WASHINGTON CATHEDRAL

One of my great loves has always been woodworking – please visit my woodworking site – www.creations-by-thomas.com.  The Washington Cathedral is blessed with many beautiful wood carvings (click to see examples) such as the 32 wonderful carved animals on the arms of the choir pews, the carved statues of the twelve apostles who support the altar rail at the main altar, the reredos (the carved panels behind the altar) in the Children’s and St. Mary’s Chapels, the lovely little animal carvings on the altar rail in Bethlehem Chapel and four delightful, well hidden, Green Men. Because of my interest in woodworking, I was asked to research, design and give special tours on the wood carvings.  I photographed every woodcarving – 194 in all, and did research on the symbolism.  I still have in my possession my notebook containing all of the close-up photographs and detailed description of each carving.  I gave special wood carving tours on a regular basis, in addition to the regular tours.  Often the wood carving tours were on a different day from my scheduled Wednesday.  I also gave special Gothic Architecture tours. Sometimes I was at the cathedral two or three times a week.  I also was involved in teaching in the afternoons in the School and Family Programs, a program for young school children in D.C.   I loved the enthusiasm of these young children.  Unfortunately this program was discontinued several years ago because of lack of funds.  So for five years, I spent many hours at the Washington Cathedral.  During the rebuilding of the Woodrow Wilson bridge and reconstruction of  I-295 which took several years, the 25 mile commute would often take over two hours each way.   In 2007, I decided that this commute of two or three days a week was too much for this senior citizen and resigned from this much loved position.  

BEGINNING OUR CATHEDRAL QUEST

Being a docent at the beautiful Gothic Washington Cathedral whetted my appetite to see the great cathedrals of Europe.  Thus in the spring of 2003 we began our “CATHEDRAL QUEST”.  So far my wife and I have, in the past eight years have spent 116 days in Europe and visited 165 Romanesque, Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque cathedrals, abbeys and churches in England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Czech Republic, Hungry, Austria, and Spain plus three castles. 

For each "CATHEDRAL QUEST" trip we spent many months planning before departure, deciding on the churches we wish to visit, booking hotels and restaurants, and travel routes.  We read architecture and history books about the churches we want to explore as well as other places of interest in each city.  My wife is the expert on hotels, restaurants, art museums, and  shopping, and makes many advanced reservations.  

On all of our CATHEDRAL QUESTS, we have kept a very detailed daily journal.  I have taken thousands of photographs which we identified by file number each day in our journal.  All except two of these journals have been rewritten on my computer.  I am working on finishing them along with a  more detail . Now that I have this website, I intend to finish this project in the very near future so I can share them with you. You are invited to come back often to see the latest additions.

CATHEDRAL MODELS I HAVE MADE

Several years ago, I discovered cathedral model kits and began making models of the cathedrals we wanted to explore.  Please look at these models.   The 45 models that I have made, are very detailed and take hours upon hours to make.  Many parts are so small, I had to use tweezers. Spending so much time with these models increased my anticipation of seeing them in person and examining details that the casual observer might miss.  Please visit all my cathedral models. This model is Reims Cathedral in France.

For example, we visited Notre Dame in Paris before I made the model.  When I assembled the  clocks on both sides of the transept roofs,  I did not remember seeing these little clocks when we were there.  When we made a return trip to Paris in 2006, I had to check them out and sure enough they were really there. I had taken pictures of the model with me.  I then took a number of pictures of the real clocks – just for proof.   

Another example was a very difficult to assemble flying buttress configuration at the juncture of the chancel and transept at Cologne Cathedral.  Again I had to use tweezers to put these buttresses in a very tight location.

SHARING OUR CATHEDRAL QUEST IN LIFETIME LEARNING PROGRAMS

After returning from France in 2005, I was leading the Wood Carving tour at the Washington Cathedral for a Lifetime Learning Class at Northern Virginia Community College.  Several members of the class asked if I would come to the college and tell them about my trips.  This has lead to teaching an eight week class at Lifetime Learning Institutes at George Mason University, Northern Virginia Community College and the College of Southern Maryland.    In the beginning, I entitled my class “Great Gothic and How It Got That Way.”    Since the lectures are now more than Gothic architecture, the class is now entitled “From Solomon to Gaudi: A History of European Church Architecture”. For more information and an outline of the class please click here. I teach only about the churches that I have actually visited.  Because of travel plans and other commitments I did not teach in 2011 and have nothing schedule for 2012.  

The use of the cathedral models, mentioned above, in teaching these classes has been received with great enthusiasm.  When presenting the slides of the cathedrals on the screen,  I can lift up and point out the exact locations on the models.  Since the models are to scale,  it is enlightening to compare one or more cathedral models during a lecture. 

A second visual aid that I have found extremely helpful is the use of models of elevations and buttresses.  I photocopied the elevations and buttresses of nine cathedrals which were created by Alberto Berengo Gardin and  are included in Gunther Binding's book - High Gothic.  I enlarge these drawings until they reached the size of 1 inch to 10 foot scale.  Then I glued them to 3/4 inch plywood and cut them out on my scroll saw.  I printed, on acetate, the actual windows from each of these cathedrals and  then mounted them in the window opening on the elevations.  I was able to photograph the elevation and buttress drawings of the Washington Cathedral and mounted them to use as a comparison since most of those taking my lectures have been in the Washington Cathedral.  I use these comparisons so my students get a sense of the various heights and side elevations.   I will be using these comparisons on this website as I discuss the various cathedrals.  Here is an example of comparing the Washington Cathedral - on the left- with Beauvais in France- on the right.  The interior height of Washington Cathedral is 100 ft ( the model is 10 inches). The height of Beauvais, which is the tallest cathedral in the world, is 157 ft (the model is 15 1/2 inches).  

TWO GREAT RESOURCES FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION

Teaching these classes encouraged me to do more research on what I wanted to observe about the churches we would visit in the future.  Since 2006 we have been active members of the Smithsonian Resident Associate Program which offers tremendous courses on a great variety of subjects.  Since we live 25 minutes (on a good traffic day!!) from the Smithsonian Institution, we go to Washington often to attend lectures. We have been particularly interested taking art and architectural history courses.  I recently completed enough courses to receive a Certificate of Completion of a study in Western Art History.  These classes have been very helpful in our travels and my teachings.  It has been wonderful to participate in an eight week course of Renaissance Art and in the middle of the course take our trip to Italy and visit the paintings that we had just studied  - in Arena Chapel in Padua and the great masters in Uffizi in Florence.  I have also taken a history of architecture lecture and shortly afterwards visit the cathedral that we studied in person.  We also have purchased a number of lecture series from the Teaching Company where we have studied art, architecture and medieval history.  I highly recommend both of these sources for continuing education.  

 THE GOAL OF THIS WEB SITE

In the spring of 2009, I took a class on travel writing at the Smithsonian Institution.  The lecturer, Michael Luongo, who has written a number of travel books, encouraged me to write a book about our cathedral adventures and to include the material that I use in my cathedral lectures.  He further suggested that I might start by creating it on a website.  I have been thinking about this for over a year but until now have not done much about it.   I had decided on the name CATHEDRALQUEST. COM.  Recently I  thought I had better claim it before someone else did.   I knew that if I had this site, I would make a concerted effort to finish it in a reasonable amount of time.  

I am putting this introduction on the site on June 16, 2010 in the hope that you will return often to see my progress.   I anticipate this site including: