Last month’s edition of Cathedral News revealed how the Cathedral’s team of Conservators discovered some beautifully written English text believed to be over 350 years old behind the Henry Hyde Monument from the Cathedral’s South Aisle wall.

Now a detailed photographic record of the text has been made by specialist Dr John Crook.

“I still haven’t cracked the inscription. There seems to be a phrase ‘and we are c…’ but the only match that comes up in the entire Authorised version of the Bible is Jeremiah chapter 14, v9: ‘Why shouldest thou be as a man astonished, as a mighty man that cannot save? Yet thou, O LORD, art in the midst of us, and we are called by thy name; leave us not.’ This doesn’t seem to work as the word beginning with C is not ‘called’ as far as I can see.

"Of course the next phase is to try earlier English versions of the Bible. Higher up is what could be a word ending in …’gelene’.”

By the time this month’s Cathedral News is printed the Conservators’ repair work on The Hyde Monument will have been completed, the monument put back on the wall and the text again hidden from view.