The Chapel of the Holy Spirit in Ripon Cathedral represents a sadly stillborn Anglican Space Age tradition of church furnishing. Completed in 1970 in honour of the previous year’s Apollo 11 moon landing, it is very much of its time.
I have seen some horrified reaction on social media to my photos of it, complaining at such a supposedly jarring presence in one of the finest buildings of the Romanesque-Gothic transition anywhere in Europe. Let us not forget, however, that the places of worship on this site have been substantially altered many times, including by St Wilfrid himself in the 7th Century, and even destroyed and completely rebuilt once. Perhaps most obviously, the Victorian restoration was imaginative but also far more inappropriate than this: yet Ripon Cathedral would not be what it is today without that and without a few fine pieces of Edwardiana and post-Edwardiana that are hardly redolent of the High Middle Ages.
Having long since passed through its groovy phase, to my mind the Chapel of the Holy Spirit has also by now finished its naff phase, and is becoming established as the sort of quirky period piece that any great cathedral must have many of from many different eras.
Located at the east end of the south choir aisle the chapel represents the Holy Trinity in themes astronomical and astronautical themes.
The hanging pyx represents Christ, who is sacramentally present within it, as this is where the Cathedral reserves the Blessed Sacrament.
The design of the pyx is essentially copied from the reaction control thrusters for the Apollo Lunar Excursion Module. Really, I’m not making that up.
