Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans: With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the AbbeyPerkins, Thomas, Rev.
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans: With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey
Perkins, Thomas, Rev.
St. Albans Cathedral
The south aisle roof is partly lead (Scott) and partly, at the eastern
end, of red tiles (Lord Grimthorpe). Lord Grimthorpe cut four windows in
the western bays of the aisle, in which no windows had originally
existed, as domestic buildings abutted against the church here. The
three eastern windows of Abbot William of Trumpington's time were
rebuilt in the old style; the five bays to the west of these were
refaced with brick and flint, as the original clunch stone had perished,
owing to exposure to the weather. The arcading of the north walk of the
cloister may still be seen. It will be noticed that this arcading did
not follow the division into bays of the aisle walls above. The cloister
walk acted as a kind of continuous buttress to the south aisle wall, and
owing to its removal this part of the wall was gradually pushed outward.
To strengthen it Lord Grimthorpe built buttresses, naturally following
the division of the upper part of the walls, but thereby cutting across
the arcading of the cloister walk in a most ugly fashion. By building
flying buttresses instead, he might have preserved the whole of the
arcading of the cloister walk unbroken, but he considered that this plan
would have been ugly, and that the buttresses he did build were
constructively better; possibly they may be, but most of us will be of
the opinion that, as far as appearance goes, the plan adopted was the
less satisfactory. The porch over the Abbot's door in the corner is
entirely new. It probably is useful as a support for the wall, but that
is all that can be said in its favour. Lord Grimthorpe thought that this
would be used as an entrance to the church on this side, but it has not
been so used. It is worthy of notice that this church is destitute of
porches, either on the southern or northern side; probably because they
were not needed in a purely monastic church.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH TRANSEPT AS REBUILT.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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