Cathedrals -- England; England -- Description and travel
It was Bishop Ralph who before 1108 built the church we know, and
completed it save upon the west front, where only the lower parts of
the south-western tower are Norman. But work earlier than his, Saxon
work, may be seen in the south aisle of the choir, where there are two
carved stones representing Christ with Martha and Mary and the Raising
of Lazarus. Bishop Ralph's church was badly damaged by fire in 1114,
and it would seem that the four western bays of the nave date from the
following rebuilding and restoration. Then in 1187 the Cathedral was
burnt again, and Bishop Seffrid vaulted it for the first time--till
then only the aisles had been vaulted--building great buttresses to
support this and re-erecting the inner arcade of the clerestory.
Apparently the apse and ambulatory which till then had closed the
great church, on the east had been destroyed in the fire. At any rate
Bishop Seffrid replaced them with the exquisite retro-choir we have,
and square eastern chapels. He did the same with the old apses of the
transepts, and he recased the choir with Caen stone, using Purbeck very
freely and with beautiful effect. All this work is very late
Transitional, the very last of the Norman or Romanesque.
Then in the thirteenth century, which was to see St Richard Bishop of
Chichester, the beautiful south porch was built, a pure Early English
work, the north porch almost as lovely and of the same date, and later
the sacristy beside the south porch. In St Richard's own day the south-
west tower was built as we see it. The Norman tower over the crossing
was destroyed and a lighter one built in its place as we see, and the
galilee was set up before the western doors. Then, too, the chapels
were built out from the nave aisles, upon the north those of St Thomas,
St Anna, and St Edmund, upon the south, those of St George and St
Clement, things unique in England, and all largely works of the second
half of the thirteenth century and the early Decorated style, which
indeed give to the Cathedral, with its dark Norman nave, all its charm,
its variety and delight.
Not much later than this transformation of the nave, though the nave
itself was not touched, was the rebuilding or rather the lengthening
and transformation of the Lady Chapel. Fundamentally this beautiful
Decorated chapel is a Norman work, transformed into a Transitional one,
to be glorified and transfigured in the very end of the thirteenth
century, and now spoilt as we see. All this was done either by St
Richard himself, or with the money gathered at his shrine.
In the first half of the fourteenth century little would appear to
have been built, save that certain beautiful windows, as that in the
end of the south aisle of the choir and that in the south transept,
with Bishop Langton's tomb beneath it, were inserted, and the fine
stalls were built in the choir.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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