Oh, boy. The finest example of Norman Gothic, everything emphasising the vertical, the eye taken straight to Heaven. Viollet-le-Duc, who for once did no restoration here (you can't improve on perfection), said that the lantern tower was designed by 'a sublime madman'. 300 feet tall, it can be seen from Jersey. There was a Cathedral here in the 5th century, built by the first Bishop, St. Ereptolius; but the Normans, raiding in 866, knocked it down. As they went on raiding until Coutances became Norman in 933, rebuilding didn't start until the 11th century. William the not-yet Conqueror was present at the consecration of this Romanesque edifice in 1056. It later suffered a disastrous fire and was rebuilt on the
same foundations between 1210 and 1274. Since then it has remained miraculously unchanged. During the Wars of Religion some damage was done, but nothing that couldn't be repaired; the rood screen was dismantled in the 17th century. During the revolution the Cathedral was successively a theatre, a grain store and a Temple of Reason, and many statues were desecrated, but the structure remained intact. Even the bombing of 1944 failed to knock the place over, though the town burned all around it. Even the Organ is old – the first mention of an organ was in 1468, but the present one replaced it in 1728, Face it, the whole thing is pure and sweet and inspiring and gorgeous.

The fact that my daughter was born in its shadow does not influence my view in the least.