George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted PapersStreet, George Edmund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George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers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
The transept has a double gable, as in the Marien-Kirche, and
internally is arranged like an aisle rather than a transept. The west
front is curious and indescribable: an irregular assemblage of arcades
and windows without order or definiteness, but withal very effective.
And as will be seen from the ground-plan, the north aisle being much
narrower than the south produces of necessity a great irregularity in
the whole elevation, and this irregularity is so carefully managed as
really completely to conceal the awkwardness which would otherwise be
very apparent. There is no tower, only a turret on the roof, at the
intersection of nave, choir, and transept roofs.
In buildings connected with the church is a large library, some
cartoons of Overbeck’s, and some work of Godfrey Kneller’s, he, as well
as Overbeck, having been born here.
The other churches are not very remarkable. S. Peter’s has a good
steeple with metal turrets at the base of the spire, and I believe
there is a fine brass there, but I failed to see it.
S. James has a very plain brick tower, and a good triapsidal east end,
very much like that of S. Katharine. The steeple is crowned with a
modern spire: inside there is a late metal font, of the kind popular in
Lübeck--a large vat-like vessel standing on the backs of four kneeling
angels, and covered with small and ineffective arcading with figures
and subjects. There is a large organ of rather early date, and two
curious standard lanterns for carrying lights in procession: they are
of very late date, but still so rare as to be worth notice.
S. Giles has no one feature of interest, save its very fine tower and
spire.
Of the hospitals the most curious is the Heiligen-Geist-Spital: the
ground-plan and general arrangement of which are most remarkable. The
chapel is the oblong building at the west end, only two bays in length,
but of great width: against its east wall is a rood-screen and loft,
under which is the altar, and, on either side of the altar, doors
which admit every one under the loft into the hospital. This, like
many of our old hospitals (S. Mary’s, Chichester, and Higham Ferrers,
are cases in point) is one immense hall, 250 ft. long by 40 ft. wide,
and has down its length two passages, and four rows of cubicles for
the inmates, and accommodates no less than 150 poor people: truly a
most royal provision for the poor. There is an entrance at the sides,
but the main entrance is through the chapel, through which there is a
constant passing, and it is therefore more like a great hall than a
chapel. How much better is the ordinary English arrangement (of which
I saw a grand example at Lüneburg), in which the chapel is at the east
end of the hall. There the chapel sanctifies the whole, instead of
being itself profaned, as is the case at Lübeck.
The hospital was founded by one Bertram Mornewech, in A.D. 1286, and is
similar in plan, I believe, to the great Gothic Hospital della Scala at
Siena.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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