English Cathedrals Illustrated: Second and Revised EditionBond, Francis
History
English Cathedrals Illustrated: Second and Revised Edition
Bond, Francis
Cathedrals -- England; Cathedrals -- Wales
Now we return to the cathedral, to the _Lady chapel_: much restored,
of similar date and character to those of Hereford and Bristol. It
was a remarkable specimen of mediæval “jerry-building,” built without
foundations of any sort or kind. One of the bosses, figured in Dean
Howson’s book on “The Dee,” depicts the murder of Thomas Becket.
Originally the Lady chapel had three windows, each triplets, on either
side.
_Eastern choir._—To the same period belongs the east wall of the choir,
and the two eastern bays. The east wall is pierced by but one arch, as
at Hereford and Chichester; an inferior ending to the triple eastern
arches of the choirs of Wells and Salisbury. The mouldings of the
southern arches are a cheap imitation of the better work on the north.
_Western choir._—The remaining bays to the west have piers of altogether
different section, and are Early Geometrical in character (1245-1280);
and should be compared with Westminster choir and the Angel choir
of Lincoln. In digging, the foundations of the east ends of the
thirteenth-century aisles have been found. They turn out to have been
polygonal. Sir G. G. Scott has been allowed to rebuild this aisle in
apsidal form, and to crown his work with a hideous “extinguisher” roof.
To put up this sham Gothic, he pulled down the Perpendicular choir-aisle,
and expelled the monuments of three ancient county families in favour of
an eminent contractor. This is what is called “restoration.”
All the above work stops at the top of the beautiful triforium, a
trefoiled arcade. The clerestory is late Geometrical work; the tracery
of the windows is thin and uninteresting (1280-1315). The proportions
of the choir as thus completed are not at all satisfactory; the tall
clerestory, with its big broad windows, is ruinous to the effect of the
low pier-arcade and the diminutive triforium: it looks top-heavy. Compare
the choir of Lichfield.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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