How to Visit the English CathedralsSingleton, Esther
History
How to Visit the English Cathedrals
Singleton, Esther
Cathedrals -- England
“Looking upwards, the visitor will note the beauty of the vaulting
and the bosses placed at the intersection of the ribs. These bosses
at the east end of the choir chiefly represent a choir of angels
playing on various kinds of musical instruments, and a figure of
Our Lord in the attitude of blessing. All the roof was originally
probably painted and decorated, but the existing colour and gilding
is recent work, having been done by Clayton & Bell. At first sight
the groining of the roof looks most complicated, but, if analysed
and dotted down on paper, it will be seen to be in reality a simple
geometrical pattern. The bosses will repay careful examination with
a glass.
“Viewed from the door in the screen, the choir looks in very truth
a piece of Perpendicular work, as the Norman substructure is then
for the most part concealed. A closer examination, however, will
prove that the Norman work is all there--that it has been veiled
over with tracery from the floor level to the vaulting with open
screen-work, fixed on to the Norman masonry, which was pared down
to receive it.”--(H. J. L. J. M.)
The general impression is striking:
“The choir on which you are now looking is very long--not too long,
however, for its great height--for the fretted roof, a delicate
mosaic of tender colours set in pale gold, soars high above the
vaulting of the nave. The proportions are simply admirable. From
the lofty traceried roof down to the elaborately tiled floor, the
walls are covered with richly carved panelled work, broken here and
there with delicate screens of stone. The eastern end, hard by the
high altar, is the home of several shrines. There is happily no
lack of colour in this part of our cathedral. The western end is
furnished with sixty richly-carved canopied stalls of dark oak,
mostly the handiwork of the Fourteenth Century. The curiously and
elaborately fretted work of the roof we have already spoken of as
a rich mosaic of gold and colours. The floor, if one dare breathe
a criticism in this charmed building, is too bright and glistening,
but it is in its way varied and beautiful. The carving of the
reredos, a work of our own day, is, to the writer’s mind, open to
criticism, but is still very fair, telling in every detail of
loving work and true reverence.”--(S.)
The =High Altar= occupies the same site as the ancient one. The sixty
=Choir-stalls= have been restored in part; the sub-stalls date from Sir
Gilbert Scott’s restoration (1873). On the south side of the High Altar
there are four =Sedilia= also restored. Redfern’s figures in the niches
are Abbot Edric, Bishop Wulstan, and Abbots Aldred, Serlo, Foliot,
Thokey, Wygmore, Horton, Froucester, Morwent, Seabroke and Hanley. The
three angels over the canopies, playing on a tambour and trumpets,
deserve notice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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