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
Here also is a modern altar tomb (55), from a design by Mr. G.E.
Street, to the memory of John Henry Jacob, and a fine Jacobean
monument with bust and Latin inscription to Lord Chief Justice Hyde.
Among many other post-reformation monuments are those to: Bishop
Fisher (56) on the east wall; a canopied altar tomb (57) in the Gothic
style to the memory of Edward and Rachel Poore (died 1780 and 1781),
the collateral descendants of the famous bishop, and a marble slab set
in a Gothic frame to Canon Hume (died 1834).
On the south wall of the nave (58) there is an effigy of Mrs. Eleanor
Sadler, who died July 30th, 1622, and was interred "according to her
owne desire under this her pew, wherein with great devotion she had
served God dailie almost L years." Amid other monuments on this wall,
dating from late in the seventeenth century to the present day, is a
small tablet (60) to one of the most famous Salisbury men in modern
times, the Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, M.P., late Postmaster-General,
who died in 1884.
=The Chapter House=, which is entered from the eastern walk of the
cloisters, dates probably from the time of Edward the First; later it
may be, but certainly not earlier than the commencement of his reign,
as, during certain excavations for underpinning the walls in 1854,
several pennies of that king were found below its foundations. The
architecture is somewhat later in style than that of the cloisters,
and if it be not, as its admirers claim, the most beautiful in
England, it has few rivals. Like Westminster, Wells, and other English
examples, except York and Southwell, it has a central pillar, from
which the groining of the roof springs gracefully in harmonious
lines. A raised bench of stone runs round the interior. At its back,
forty-nine niches of a canopied arcade borne on slight Purbeck marble
shafts mark out as many seats. They are apportioned as follows: those
at each side of the entrance to the Chancellor and Treasurer
respectively, the rest to the Bishop, Dean, Arch-deacons, and other
members of the chapter.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHAPTER HOUSE.]
[Illustration: BOSSES FROM THE CHAPTER HOUSE ROOF.]
The plan of the building is octagonal, about fifty-eight feet in
diameter and fifty-two feet in height. Each side has a large fanlight
window with traceried head. Below these windows and above the canopies
of the seats is a very remarkable series of bas-reliefs, noticed more
fully later on. The bosses of the roof are somewhat elaborately
carved; one north of the west doorway has groups of figures on it,
apparently intended to represent armourers, musicians, and
apothecaries, possibly commemorating guilds who were benefactors to
the building; the others have foliage chiefly with grotesque monsters.
On the base of the central pillar is a series of carvings taken
probably from one of the many books of fables so popular in the middle
ages. These were reproduced from the originals, which are preserved
in the cloisters.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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