This is a really nice photograph of a cathedral cat. Cathedral cats are very popular and very useful to cathedrals. They add that magic touch just by their presence and here we have Budge who is the boss at Norwich Cathedral. Budge rhymes with ‘fudge’. He has the usual social media pages because like all Cathedral cats he is a bit of a celebrity which is entirely right and proper. I think they contribute to a Cathedral more than any other sentient being in the cathedral including the visitors and those that work there other than the vicar or dean.
The BBC tells us that Budge regularly attends services at the cathedral. He has a calming and therapeutic effect upon the parishioners said the Dean. Remarkably, he lives nearby in a perfectly nice home with, I guess, a loving human caregiver but he needs a bit more and almost daily wonders into the cathedral.
Dean Hedges said: “Budge first started coming to church about three years ago. He turned up at a Good Friday service, and the verger said, ‘Oh, there’s a cat in here”. We put him outside but he kept coming back and then he seemed to make himself at home.” Why did they put him outside? Anyway, they discovered that he was good for business.
They think he is about four years of age and he always finds the warmest areas and often sleeps on the underfloor heating grates. On one occasion he fell asleep in the crib in the cathedral’s Nativity scene which was meant for the baby Jesus. There was straw in there and it was warm said the Dean. In the video he is sleeping on the chorister’s benches.
He likes to follow choristers around because he’s a sociable boy but in line with most domestic cats he does not like large crowds.
The Dean said that if a distressed person arrives Budge sits next to them and they find it very therapeutic.
Bishop criticises Dean of Southwark for holding a memorial service for the cathedral’s cat
I have a page on Southwark Cathedral’s cat (above) and below are some more pages on celebrity cats which you may like to dip into.
