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 Transept.#--From this aisle we pass into the transept. Its southern
arm, notwithstanding the havoc wrought by Lord Grimthorpe, still retains
many points of interest. On its eastern side the triforium, consisting
of three bays, contains some baluster shafts of Saxon date; it is
supposed that they were taken from the church which Abbot Paul
demolished. It will be seen from the illustration that they are marked
with rings, and close examination has shown that they were turned in a
lathe, but not being quite long enough for their new position, extra
bases and capitals were added; these were cut with an axe, as were also
the cylindrical shafts of Norman date, which are set alternately with
the older ones. From the excellent state of preservation of the Saxon
balusters, it is evident that they did not come from the exterior of the
early church. Similar shafts may be noticed in the east wall of the
northern arm of the transept There are two arches in the eastern wall
which once led into chapels, the southern dedicated to St. Stephen, the
northern first to our Lady, afterwards to St. John; they were pulled
down in the fourteenth century to make room for a treasury. One of the
arches is now used as a cupboard, the other as a kind of museum of
fragments of carved stonework. The south wall is entirely new. Lord
Grimthorpe pulled down the front containing a Perpendicular window,
originally fifteenth-century work, but rebuilt in 1832. Thus inserted
his five tall lancets, beneath which built into the wall are ten of the
arches with restored shafts of the arcade taken from the slype at the
time of its destruction; the other six are to be seen in the south wall
of the rebuilt slype, if slype it can now be called. Under this arcading
in the transept is a doorway, built by Lord Grimthorpe, partly from
fragments of the west doorway of the old slype, and partly from his own
design. The rebuilt slype is no longer a passage as it formerly was,
leading between the south end of the transept and the north wall of the
rectangular chapter-house, but is closed at the west end by a wall with
a window in it, and at the east end has a door. Fortunately, a
photograph taken before the destruction was available for reproduction,
so that the reader may see the original condition of the south wall of
the slype (see p. 20). The west wall of the transept has entirely
different shafts in its triforium from those on the opposite side. A
little double-light window or grating may be seen in the west wall near
the aisle; it once opened into a small watching chamber, which was
walled up at the time of the restoration for the sake of giving
additional strength to the walls at the angle. It will be noticed that
the pilasters projecting from the west wall do not come down to the
ground. Lord Grimthorpe considers that these were not cut away, as might
be imagined but were originally built as we see them to give strength to
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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