Winchester Cathedral - Memorials and Artworks

Memorials and Artworks

In the south transept there is a "Fishermen's Chapel", which is the burial place of Izaak Walton. Walton, who died in 1683, was the author of The Compleat Angler and a friend of John Donne. In the choir is the bell from HMS Iron Duke which was the flagship of Admiral John Jellicoe at the Battle of Jutland in 1916.

The crypt, which frequently floods, houses a statue by Antony Gormley, called "Sound II", installed in 1986, and a modern shrine to Saint Swithun. The mysterious statue contemplates the water held in cupped hands. Gormley spoke of the connection of memories to basic elements of the physical world, "Is it possible to do this and make something fresh, like dew or frost – something that just is, as if its form had always been like this.’ There is also a bust of William Walker, the deep-sea diver who worked underwater in the crypt between 1906 and 1911 underpinning the nave and shoring up the walls.

A series of nine icons were installed between 1992 and 1996 in the retroquire screen which for a short time protected the relics of St Swithun destroyed by Henry VIII in 1538. These icons, influenced by the Russian Orthodox tradition, were created by Sergei Fyodorov and dedicated in 1997. They include the local religious figures St Swithun and St Birinus. Beneath the retroquire Icons, is the Holy Hole once used by pilgrims to crawl beneath and lie close to the healing shrine of St Swithun.

The sculptor Alan Durst was responsible for the carving on one of the memorials in the church.