How to Visit the English CathedralsSingleton, Esther
History
How to Visit the English Cathedrals
Singleton, Esther
Cathedrals -- England
“consists of six bays of open tracery divided by panels of canopied
niches containing figures and heraldic bearings surmounted by a
battlemented rail and pinnacles. Within is a richly groined roof,
with unusual flying supports, east and west. At the east end are
the mutilated remains of a rich stone reredos, containing a figure
of our Lord, and others hardly recognisable, which was above the
altar formerly placed here. At the west end is a small figure of
Henry VII. seated.
“The tomb itself of the Prince stands in the centre of the chantry.
It is singularly plain, in contrast to the richness of its
surroundings, almost the only ornament being the arms of England
and France within panels on the sides. Around the top runs a
painted inscription, obviously a late substitute for a brass which
has been removed, to this effect: ‘Here lyeth buried prince Arthur,
the first begotten sonne of the righte renowned Kinge henry the
Seventhe, whiche noble Prince departed oute of this transitory life
ate the Castle of Ludlowe, in the seventeenth yeere of hys father’s
reign, and in the yeere of our Lorde god on thousande fyve hundred
and two.’”--(E. F. S.)
The =Chapel of St. John=, projecting from two bays of the
south-choir-aisle, is on the site of a Norman chapel. The Norman arch at
the west end is its finest feature. It has three windows filled with
modern glass and a piscina in the south wall.
The =Eastern transepts= demand careful attention.
“The design of the walls ... is extremely beautiful. Two lofty
triplets of lancet lights are placed the one above the other. The
lower triplet has a gallery in front of it immediately above the
arcaded wall, and at the same level as the sill of the adjacent
side aisle windows. The upper triplet has a similar gallery at the
level of the triforium. Rich clustered shafts rise from the lower
gallery in two orders; the inner order carries molded arches to
correspond with the heads of the lower triplet; the shafts of the
outer order rise from the lower gallery up to the impost of the
upper triplet, grouping themselves with the shafts that stand in
front of the upper triplet, and uniting in one group of capitals at
the impost, where they carry a range of three arches with deep rich
mouldings. Thus the entire composition represents a gigantic window
of six lights.”--(W.)
One of the finest features of the Cathedral is the arcade that runs
along the whole extent of the eastern transepts and across the
Lady-Chapel.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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