Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal SeePalmer, G. H. (George Henry)
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See
Palmer, G. H. (George Henry)
Rochester Cathedral (Rochester, Kent, England)
We will now conclude our account of the front in its present form, with
a description of its flanking towers. The northern is square for its
whole height, and has four rows, one above the other, of blind arcading.
The southern, with the same number of arcades, is also square in its
lower portion, but, for the two upper rows becomes octagonal, and
finally terminates in an octagonal pyramid. The spire of its fellow on
the north can scarcely be called octagonal; it is square, with the
angles only slightly cut down, and with slight splaying at its base. On
the summits of both are curious conical caps (like those described as
surmounting the gable turrets), from which ribs run down the angles. The
arcades are continued round the outer sides of the lower parts of the
towers, and right round when the roofs of the aisles are passed. The
heads of all the arches are as usual semicircular, and the second arcade
from the top is filled with a diaper of semicircles arranged in a
curious scale-like pattern.
Generally, as we have said, except for the great Perpendicular window
and the gable above it, the front shows the design of the later Norman
builders. The window that they constructed in it was possibly
wheel-shaped, but we have no representation of the cathedral previous to
its supplanting. The parts of the front that show their old form now
have not, however, all continuously retained it. At the time of the
erection of the Perpendicular clerestory to the nave, the northern gable
turret was rebuilt in the curiously plain, octagonal, flat-topped form,
which the oldest engravings of the front illustrate. It has only quite
recently been altered again to the earlier shape of its fellow on the
south; and is the only feature in which there is any conspicuous
difference between the front as now seen and as shown in our early
eighteenth century view. An earlier, seventeenth-century view exists, in
which, if it were not so inaccurate, the front would have the same
appearance. In this, however, as in his north prospect, Daniel King
shows his great liability to err. We can point to the insertion of one
tier of arcading too many in the central portion of the front, and to
the omission of the windows at the ends of the aisles, as well as of the
small door.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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