In the Quire (where service is sung), seats are reserved for the monarch and the monarch’s spouse. On the elbow (arm rest) of the spouse’s seat there’s an ornate carving of a goblin-like man “mooning,” with wonderfully well-polished buttocks.WPA Pool/WPA Pool/Getty Images
On May 19, all eyes will be on St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle as Prince Harry and Meghan Markle get hitched. The chapel – not really a chapel but a vast Gothic church with room for 800 people – dates from 1475 and is one of the finest examples of Gothic architecture in Britain. Ten former monarchs are buried here, including Henry VIII, Charles I, Edward VII and George V – but perhaps all is not quite as decorous as it seems. Scratch below the surface and there are some surprising secrets to reveal.
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Ten former monarchs are buried here at St. George's, including Henry VIII, Charles I, Edward VII and George V.WPA Pool
- In the Quire (where service is sung), seats are reserved for the monarch and the monarch’s spouse. On the elbow (arm rest) of the spouse’s seat there’s an ornate carving of a goblin-like man “mooning,” with wonderfully well-polished buttocks.
- Further in to the Quire, the stalls lift up to reveal intricately oak-carved misericords (basically medieval shelves for one’s bottom) that date from 1478-85. The designs range from biblical to humorous (a pig playing the bagpipes) to downright vulgar. The carving of a monk’s excrement morphing into a demon is understandably not on the official tour.
- There’s a fine example of 15th-century “CCTV” found in an ornate piece of stonework in the ceiling of the south Quire – a hidden window in a secret room built by a devout and rather miserly Henry VI, who liked to keep an eye on the alms boxes just below.
- Henry VIII isn’t actually buried directly underneath his ledger stone, nor in a grand royal tomb as he planned. Instead, he lies further back in a small crypt in a broken coffin, which legend says exploded because of a build-up of methane gas.
- No wonder, then, that poor Henry VIII is purported to wander the cloisters of the chapel, dragging his gout-ridden leg and groaning in pain. He may be on his way to meet his former queen Anne Boleyn, who is also said to haunt a room overlooking the Dean’s Cloister.
- Outside, the chapel is encircled by grotesques – weird and wonderful stone figures –with a couple that may cause wedding guests to blink – a mouse with a human ear grafted onto its back; and a fish with a human head à la The Shape of Water – recently commissioned to replace eroding medieval originals.
- And should Meghan Markle have second thoughts, there is a handy sally port (secret trap door) just behind St. George’s Chapel, which leads to a tunnel wide and high enough to flee through on horseback.