Highways and Byways in LincolnshireRawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
History
Highways and Byways in Lincolnshire
Rawnsley, W. F. (Willingham Franklin)
Lincolnshire (England) -- Description and travel
If we now turn westwards we shall come to the fine stone organ screen,
and pass through to the tower, whose predecessor fell through faultiness
of construction, and was rebuilt by Grosteste as far as the nave roof,
and we shall look down the nave, which is forty-two feet wide, each
aisle being another twenty feet in width. The planning and execution
of the nave we owe to the two Bishops Hugh. Its great length (524 feet
with the choir and presbytery) makes the whole building, when viewed
from the west, look lower than it is, for it is really eighty-two feet
high. Looking west this is not felt so much, and there is a feeling of
great dignity which the best Early English work always gives. The piers
may seem lacking in massive strength, but they vary in pattern, those to
the east being the most elaborate, and so gain in interest. One curious
thing about the nave, though not discernible to the uninitiated, is that
the axis, which is continuous from the east end for the first five of
the seven bays, here diverges somewhat to the north, and so runs into
the centre of the Norman west front. The two western bays are five and
a quarter feet less in span than the others. Probably the architect, as
he brought the nave down westwards with that light-hearted disregard
of a previous style of architecture which characterised the medieval
builder and his predecessors of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,
intended to sweep away all the old Norman work at the west end and carry
the line straight on with equal-sized arches, but funds failed and he had
to join up the new with the old as best he could; and we have cause to be
thankful for this, since it has preserved for us the original and most
interesting work of Remigius.
[Sidenote: THE TRANSEPTS]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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