Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of SarumWhite, Gleeson
History
Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury: A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum
White, Gleeson
Salisbury Cathedral
The triple lancet east window at the end of the Lady Chapel was filled
formerly with stained glass, representing "The Resurrection," after a
design by Sir Joshua Reynolds; it is now replaced by modern glass in
memory of the late Dean Lear. An altarpiece, composed of fragments of
the destroyed Hungerford and Beauchamp Chapels, was set up here by
Wyatt. It has lately been replaced by a triptych designed by Sir
Arthur Blomfield, with very beautiful panels painted by Mr.
Buckeridge. The seven-branched candlesticks in black-wood, silver
mounted, are by the same architect. The altar frontal, designed by Mr.
Sidney Gambier Parry, and worked by Mrs. Weigall, is so good that it
must not be overlooked. The altar itself is of stone from an old
altarpiece. Under the windows runs a series of niches, once in the
Beauchamp Chapel. Above these rich and delicate canopies, with foliage
and fan-tracery springing from corbelled heads, runs an exquisitely
sculptured frieze.
In this place, after he was canonized in 1456, the shrine of St.
Osmund was erected. His supposed tomb, moved by Wyatt to the nave, is
now replaced between the Lady Chapel and the southern aisle. Of the
shrine no trace remains; but legends of the miracles worked at it, and
the special indulgences granted to the pilgrims who visited it, prove
that it existed on this spot. The date MXCIX. inscribed upon this slab
has been questioned, on the authority of a diary made by Captain
Symons (in 1644), now in the British Museum, in which an entry occurs
with reference to this inscription, "a blew stone rising four ynches
from the ground, the east end narrower than the west, this lately
written Anno MXCIX.," but whether he means to infer that it was lately
restored, or that the date itself was a later addition, is not quite
clear. The characters of the inscription Planche pointed out
correspond in form with those at the time of William the Conqueror,
and as sepulchral effigies are uncommon until the middle of the
twelfth century, the presumption is in its favour; still it is
somewhat pathetic to find that the evidence which serves to connect
this otherwise unknown monument with the famous St. Osmund, the
greatest figure, not merely of the cathedral, but of the English
Church of his time, is not absolutely beyond suspicion. Yet even if
the Roman numerals were a later addition, it is hardly credible that
the shrine of so popular a saint could have been wrongly identified.
When Wyatt, according to his usual habit, explored the interior of the
tomb, nothing was found within it.
[Illustration: ALTAR AND TRIPTYCH REREDOS IN THE LADY CHAPEL.
_From a Photograph by Witcomb and Son, Salisbury._]
In 1540 Leland saw here a "ballet," which he transcribes for his
Itinerary, with an inscription commanding the faithful to pray for the
repose of the soul of Richard Poore.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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