Highways and Byways in Cambridge and ElyConybeare, John William Edward
History
Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely
Conybeare, John William Edward
Cambridgeshire (England) -- Description and travel; Isle of Ely (England) -- Description and travel
Unhappily its splendid design was brought to nought by the great
tragedy of the Wars of the Roses, which broke out almost immediately.
The singular mildness with which that conflict was waged (except on
the actual field of battle), with no wasting of lands, with no burning
of towns or villages, with no slaughter (and scarcely any plunder) of
non-combatants, permitted the work on the Chapel, which, as we have
seen, was already begun, to proceed, though slowly, and did not even
stop the conveyance of stone from the chosen quarry at Huddleston in
Yorkshire. The payment of the workmen was a harder matter, for Henry
was far from being a wealthy monarch. He and his wife between them had
less than the equivalent of L50,000 per annum, all too little for the
expenses of their position, even in days of peace. Still the pay was
found, in a certain measure, and the workmen came and went till
dispersed by the appalling tidings that their Royal Saint had been
deposed and murdered in the Tower. Then in panic horror they flung
down their tools and fled, with such haste that they did not even
complete the job on a block of stone, already half sawn through, which
lay, as Logan's print of 1680 shows it, in the south-east corner of
the present Great Court, Henry's intended quadrangle, a testimony to
their despair, for upwards of three centuries. Then, when the idea of
carrying out his intention was at last revived, this stone was
appropriately used as the first to be employed for that purpose, the
Foundation Stone of Gibbs' Building.
The work on the Chapel thus abruptly stopped by the Founder's death
remained in abeyance for the remainder of the century. Not till 1508
was it resumed. The shell of the building was finished 1515; the glass
and woodwork being added under Henry the Eighth. But in the end it was
completed substantially in accordance with the Founder's Will, and is
the only part of his design that has been so completed. His huge
campanile, his cloisters, his gate towers, never came into being; and
though the Great Court is now where he meant it to be, it is built in
a fashion very different from his design.
This we see at a glance as we enter it round the southern end of
Gibbs' Building. For it is not an enclosed quadrangle, but formed of
two detached blocks to south and west, while the east side is only a
stone screen, erected in 1825, and of a sadly inferior style. But the
"goodly conduit" of the Founder's Will does rise in the midst,[18] and
the north side is actually formed, as he decreed, by his glorious
Chapel, the most magnificent in the world, which now rises before us
in all its grandeur as we behold it across the Court.
[Footnote 18: His statue surmounts it, flanked by two figures
representing Science (gazing at the Chapel) and Religion (with her
eyes devoutly fixed upon the Hall). To leap across from the lawn to
the pedestal of this group is a feat seldom accomplished.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account