A Choir Pilgrimage Through England: Windsor, Portsmouth, and Salisbury

St. Mark's Choir in Salisbury Cathedral, July 2026

After landing at Heathrow outside London, the St. Mark's choir stopped at Windsor on the way to Salisbury. I visited the Windsor Parish Church, where, as a St. Mark's singer, I paid attention to the choir stalls and the organ — a large 19th-century instrument with three manuals and 60 stops. From there, the choir continued on to Salisbury.

On our second day, some of us took an optional trip to Portsmouth, where a walking path led me to Portsmouth Cathedral. Inside, I passed through the choir screen to the stalls where the cathedral choir sings, with an old organ overhead. An Evensong was scheduled there for 5:45 that evening, one I couldn't attend since our bus left at 4 p.m. But looking at the music prepared for the service, I felt a delightful surprise: All of it was music the St. Mark's choir has performed on past pilgrimages to England — the Dyson canticles in D, the Rose responses, and a Stanford psalm setting. I felt completely at home.

The next day, back in Salisbury, the St. Mark's choir began its role as the first summer replacement choir for the vacationing choir of Salisbury Cathedral, singing our first Evensong there on Monday — the reason we came.

Salisbury Cathedral, completed in 1258, once had a choir screen separating its quire from the nave, much like Portsmouth's still does. That wall was removed in 1790, and the organ was divided into two compartments over each side of the choir stalls. After our first rehearsal in the cathedral, we were given guided tours, standing in the crossing with the organ and choir stalls visible overhead.

The choir met at 4 p.m. to rehearse before our first Evensong at 5:30 — a significant event for us and for the cathedral, since we were the first "replacement choir" to take over services this summer. As rehearsal ended, I looked across the quire to the matching choir stalls on the other side — a configuration much like St. Mark's own choir pews, just on a smaller scale.

We came to venerate the music of our sacred tradition and to keep it alive in the cathedral's services this week.

— Gerald Self