Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely: A History and Description of the Building with a Short Account of the Monastery and of the SeeSweeting, W. D. (Walter Debenham)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ely: A History and Description of the Building with a Short Account of the Monastery and of the See
Sweeting, W. D. (Walter Debenham)
Ely Cathedral
#Prior Crauden's Chapel# is a most exquisite specimen of the
Decorated period, designed by the same master mind that created the
octagon and the lady-chapel. Crauden was prior from 1321 to 1341. Built
as a private chapel, it was at one time converted into a dwelling, but
is now restored to sacred uses as the chapel of the King's School. It is
situated to the south of the deanery. It is of small dimensions, being
only thirty-one feet long; and this is exactly double its breadth. The
vaulted roof springs from clustered shafts in the walls; in the eastern
half, on each side, are two tall windows of two lights, with most
graceful tracery; at the east is a window of five lights, of equally
beautiful tracery, filled with stained glass, of which the five lower
figures are ancient and said to have been brought from Cologne. The
west window has four lights. When Professor Willis was conducting some
members of an architectural congress, in 1860,[3] over the monastic
buildings, on arriving at this "beautiful little gem of architecture,"
in the course of his remarks "he pointed to the restorations that had
taken place, and found that they were good ones, the actual mason's
lines having been taken in some instances. In one or two cases where the
work was destroyed the spaces had been filled up with plain block,
purposely to show where the masonry had been knocked away." Some curious
tiling is to be seen on the altar platform: there are figures of Adam
and Eve and numerous unusual designs. On no account should this chapel
be left unvisited.
[Illustration: ELY PORTA, THE GREAT GATE OF THE MONASTERY, 1817.
_From Stevenson's Supplement to Bentham._]
The great gateway of the abbey, #Ely Porta#, remains in a nearly
perfect condition. It was the place where the manor courts were held,
and was in course of erection when Prior Bucton died in 1397. From his
successor, in whose time it seems to have been completed, it is
sometimes called Walpole's gate. At one time a portion was devoted to
the brewery, and here the audit ale was brewed till so recently as Dean
Goodwin's time.[4] It is now used partly as a house for the porter and
partly for the school. The new buildings of the school, just opposite,
are on the site of an ancient hostelry called the Green Man, which was
"possibly the descendant of some mediaeval lodging-house to which
pilgrims resorted."[5]
Between Ely Porta and the cathedral are to be seen many fragmentary
remains of the old monastery, some of Norman date, now forming parts of
houses. Over the road to the west of these buildings there used to be a
covered passage, called "The Gallery"--a name still retained by the
street itself--leading from the bishop's palace to the cathedral. Access
to this from the cathedral was in the western transept. The writer has
not been able to hear of any engraving or drawing of this.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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