George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund
History
George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers
Street, George Edmund
Architecture, Gothic; Church architecture -- Europe; Europe -- Description and travel; Street, George Edmund, 1824-1881
In the interior of the church the most interesting features are
the choir-screen and loft, and the rood. The screen stands at the
east side of the transept crossing, whilst the rood is supported on
an elaborately carved beam, which spans the _western_ arch of the
crossing, and the effect is most singular and certainly very piquant;
the whole being in a very late but good style, with figures remarkably
well sculptured. Under the screen is an altar, and on either side still
remains another. They are of stone supported on brick work, and there
is no mark of piscina, or of lockers, or places for relics in them. The
rood, and the figures of SS. Mary and John, are on a very large scale,
so that altogether, with their supports, they reach nearly the whole
height of the arch under which they stand.
There are also throughout the nave of the cathedral a number of very
curious seats; they vary a good deal in detail, but their outline is
similar, and their effect rather striking; I confess, however, that I
was sorry to see examples of fixed seats of such a date in a cathedral
church. In the nave there are some pendents for candles; one an angel
holding a light, and strongly reminding one of those beautiful angels
with candles above the stalls in the choir of S. Laurence at Nuremberg;
and the other, a much more elaborate composition, and coloured
richly in gold, red, and blue; it has two sitting figures of Bishops
under canopies, and bears three very large candles. One of the great
treasures of this church is the magnificent brass to Bishop Johann von
Mull, and Bishop Burchard von Serken, who deceased in 1350 and 1317. I
was unable to make so careful a rubbing of this magnificent brass as
I could have wished, but I have done enough to show how grand it is,
and how very similar in its details to the famous Flemish brasses which
remain at Lynn, S. Albans, North Mymms, Wensley, and Newark. Like two
of these, of which we fortunately possess rubbings, it is remarkable
for being one great engraved plate, and not, as was the English custom,
a plate cut out to the shape of the figure, and then inserted in an
incised slab; and compared with the S. Albans brass, which hangs by its
side, it will be seen that the detail is so exactly similar, that there
can scarcely be a shadow of a doubt that they were both engraved by the
same man. It is perhaps altogether the finest of the whole, and if so,
perhaps the finest brass in Europe. It is appreciated by the sacristan,
who demands a fee for lifting up a cover which he keeps on it, and
whose temper was of so difficult a kind that I almost despaired being
allowed to rub it. However, by persevering, I at last succeeded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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