At the weekend, Wendy and I went to see the son-et-lumiere installation Space, by the Luxmuralis collaboration, at Durham Cathedral.

It was visually impressive, lending the Cathedral an unusual ethereal quality, and changing the feeling of a building we know reasonably well. The sound was also effective, and at moments, the combination was genuinely breathtaking.

But we were slightly left wondering: what’s the point? What is the artwork trying to say? In one installation, there was audio of Richard Nixon speaking to the Apollo 11 astronauts, saying

For one priceless moment in the whole history of man all the people on this earth are truly one.

One wondered if this was a bit of a dig at the divisiveness of religion, exhibited in a Cathedral—but the whole thing left me with the impression that it wasn’t intended to be that deep (especially after I was handed a prayer card on my way out).

I think it may just have been spectacle for spectacle’s sake, and perhaps there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’ve visited Durham Cathedral many times over the years, and it’s where I matriculated as a Durham student in 2003. Yet, only in the last few days have I made my first ascent of the 325 steps to the top of the central tower.

I’ve always found it hard to imagine time in the context of Durham Cathedral. Bits of it are nearly 1,000 years old, which is a span that boggles my mind. The scale and grandeur of the structure also challenges my preconceptions of the technology of a millennium ago.

The tower I climbed is over 500 years old, and while the narrow spiral staircases felt like it, it’s still astonishing to contemplate that age—and in how many people’s footsteps I was treading.

On emerging at the top, the view is breathtaking. Particularly prominent to the East is HMP Durham, which I’ve previously visited in a professional capacity.

I also find the timeline HMP Durham mind-boggling, but in the opposite direction: young men were still being hanged at the prison gallows in my parents’ lifetime—an act of the state that seems unimaginable today.

It’s truly discombobulating to stand at the top of a very tall building and contemplate how little has changed over a millennium, and yet how much has changed in a lifetime.

From this visit to Saint Bede, I learned that he popularised the use of the Anno Domini year-numbering system, without which it would have been much harder for me to work out that he died 1,288 years ago.

The idea of people still talking about me or visiting my shine a millennium from now is both depressing and terrifying, but the odds suggest it’s really not something worth worrying about.

I’m currently reading Heaven on Earth, a book about cathedrals by Emma J Wells. In it, she frequently makes the point that cathedrals have historical importance in secular as well as religious terms. A moment’s thought makes this obvious, most of all in this coronation year, but it’s something that’s never previously given me pause for thought.

It should have done. I feel a degree of personal connection to Durham Cathedral not because of any religious connection, but because it was where I matriculated.

It leads me to wonder: do we have enough secular oversight of these ‘religious’ buildings? Is there a clear separation of, well, ‘church’ and ‘state’ in terms of finances? Are we celebrating their secular functions sufficiently?

As religion continues its inexorable decline, I suppose these questions will steadily grow in importance if we are to protect key historical sites.