Astonishing Gigapixel image of Exeter Cathedral

Part of Peter Stephens’ navigable gigapixel image of Exeter Cathedral, looking west from the crossing.  Reproduced by kind permission.

The other day someone sent me a link to this extraordinary three-dimensional image of Exeter Cathedral, taken right under the crossing of the nave and transepts.  The photographer, Peter Stephens, has produced a navigable 360-degree ‘gigapixel’, that is, an image consisting of over a billion pixels.  To see what that means, try zooming in — and keep zooming in! — to reveal its incredible detail.  The glass in the west window, the carving on the organ screen, the masonry in the roof (which is the world’s longest continuous medieval vault)… all can be brought in a flash to stunningly close quarters.

Most astonishing to me is the eye-watering clarity with which the roof-bosses, right up in the heights of the vaults, can be seen.  It is impossible to see these in any detail from the ground with the naked eye, but this image reveals the care and skill with which they were nevertheless carved and painted.  The workmanship is no less accomplished for its remoteness from mortal eyes — and why should it have been?  It was meant for Someone else to see.

The gigapixel also offers a chance to admire the wonderful fourteenth-century minstrels’ gallery up in the triforium on the south side of the nave (on the right when looking towards the great west window).  Behind the twelve carved angels with their beautiful instruments is concealed a chamber large enough to accommodate dozens of singers.  To the medieval pilgrim, hearing but not seeing the choir, it must really have seemed angels’ music.

A remarkable image of a treasured cathedral, which I must visit again once this pandemic subsides.

Update: Peter Stephens writes here about the considerable amount of work that went into making this image.

A fourteenth-century roof-boss high in the vault of the nave.  Reproduced by kind permission.