How to Build a Cathedral

Architectural historian Jon Cannon goes in search of the clues that shed light on how our medieval forebears were able to build the wonders of their world. Without the technological aids of the modern world, cathedrals were built using little more than set-squares and dividers, ropes and pulleys, hammers and chisels, but were the highest buildings created since the pyramids and until the Eiffel Tower. From the fan vaulting at Gloucester and the stained glass at York, to the solid mass of Norwich and the soaring Octagon at Ely, Cannon discovers how, and why, they were created.