Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file which includes the 180 original illustrations. See 63739-h.htm or 63739-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/63739/63739-h/63739-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/63739/63739-h.zip) Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive. See https://archive.org/details/gri_33125014518423 Some characters might not display properly in this UTF-8 text file (e.g., empty squares). If so, the reader should consult the html version or the original page images noted above. Transcriber's note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). [Illustration: ELY: NORTH AISLE OF CHOIR.] ENGLISH CATHEDRALS ILLUSTRATED by FRANCIS BOND M.A., F.G.S., HON. A.R.I.B.A. Second and Revised Edition One Hundred and Eighty Illustrations from Photographs London George Newnes, Limited Southampton Street, Strand 1900 Printed by Hazell, Watson, and Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. Introduction. [Illustration: SOUTHWELL CHOIR SCREEN.] The following pages are an attempt to make the study of the English cathedrals more interesting. Every ancient building has a life-history of its own, and should be studied biographically. But open a guide-book, or visit the different portions of a cathedral (Winchester, for example,) in the regulation order, and what you read of or see will probably be, first, what was done in the nave in the latter part of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth century; then the work done in the crossing in the twelfth century; then work done in the transepts in the eleventh century; then the work in the choir in the first half of the fourteenth century; then the work done in the retro-choir early in the thirteenth century; finally, sixteenth-century work in the Lady chapel. To the reader this hop, skip, and jump method—if it deserves to be called a method—is simply maddening. For the visitor it has one merit, and one merit only: it saves his legs. I do not propose to save the visitor’s legs; I must candidly confess that the biographical method of studying a cathedral involves a certain amount of marching and countermarching. But I venture to hope that there are some visitors who will not be deterred by a little additional bodily fatigue from studying the cathedrals aright. With what horror a reader would study a biography of the Great Duke which commenced with the Peninsular War, then described his school-days at Eton, followed these up by the battle of Waterloo, digressed into a description of his childhood and ancestry, described his career as a Tory Prime Minister, and wound up with his campaigns in India! Yet that is how the English cathedrals are studied. [Illustration: SOUTHWELL CHOIR.]