Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon: A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its FabricHallett, Cecil Walter Charles
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon: A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric
Hallett, Cecil Walter Charles
Ripon Cathedral
The Chapter-house is marked as such by the stone benches which are
carried in two tiers along the north and south walls. On the north side
the upper tier is interrupted by the piers of an arcading of plainly
chamfered round arches, the central bay of which contains a fine
mediaeval cupboard with iron scroll-work. The doorway into the choir is
very curiously treated on this side. It is surmounted first by a lintel,
the stones above which are wedges forming a 'flat arch,' and then by a
round arch so high as to run up behind the westernmost arch of the
arcading. The very fine vaulting, although some have ascribed it to the
Early English period, belongs more probably to the time of Archbishop
Roger. Unlike that over the choir-aisles and the Markenfield chapel,
however, it has all its arches rounded, and is without wall-ribs. It
springs from five-sided corbels which, like the corbels of the old nave,
are finished off with scrolls, and which on the north side are placed
against the piers of the arcading; and in the middle of the room it is
supported on two cylindrical and monolithic pillars. The bases and
capitals of these are circular, and the former are almost pure Early
English, the plinth having a round moulding at the bottom, and the base
proper consisting of two round mouldings separated by a hollow, with one
or two beads or fillets. The capitals are less advanced in style, as the
part just above the bell is not moulded and the abacus retains the
square edge. All the eight ribs that rise from each pillar resemble the
groin-ribs in the crypt.
[Illustration: THE CHAPTER-HOUSE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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