George: Heading west to Darbyshire and a stop in the town of Chesterfield. It’s market day when things grown in gardens come in for sale, from bulbs to blooms and they’re all grown right around here. The market has been held here since around 1165. Chesterfield is built over a Roman site and an iron age fort and speaking of iron, this steel band of teenagers from a town near Manchester was enlivening the market day crowd with Caribbean music and more.
The city is also known for this, the leaning spire of Chesterfield atop the church of our Lady and all saints. Visitors can actually get a close up view of the twisted tower. Paul Wilson is the church verger or assistant to the rector. He invited me to join a group hiking up high. Along the way Wilson plays a trick on the unsuspecting. Volunteers like me, are asked to ring one fo the church bells. What he doesn’t tell us suckers is that this bell weights a ton and it’s unlikely to be moved by the likes of me. Up in the spire the story of the crooked structure begins to emerge. The spire was built in the 14th century and was straight of several centuries. It’s when we get outside and peer up at the spire that the verger explains the theories for its current condition.
Paul: Six to 700 years ago, a virgin got married in Chesterfield. That was such a rare occurrence in Chesterfield at that time that the spire leaned over to have a better look at the virgin and local custom maintains that should another virgin get married in Chesterfield again, then the spire will straighten.
George: Are you optimistic?
Paul: You never know.
George: Experts say unseasoned wood was used in the construction and it was probably built after an epidemic of plague so the best carpenters may have been dead and less skilled workers may actually have built it. It now leads 9ft or some 3m to the south and it’s still moving. Although scientists who measured it say the tower moves in more than one direction so no one seems worried that the spire will tumble.
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