This little book is offered to the tourist in the most modest spirit and with the hope that in this convenient form some gleanings from the works of specialists may afford help and pleasure to those who run quickly through the Cathedral towns of England. The subject has been done so often and so well that an additional book would demand an apology if it pretended to compete with the labours of those who have spent long years in the study of special cathedrals, or with the charming recollections of travel that others have given the world from time to time. My plan has been merely to present in a single volume concise descriptions of the great ecclesiastical buildings of England, together with the story of their construction and historical associations supplemented with criticisms from the best authorities of their most striking architectural and artistic features. These authorities are duly acknowledged by initials.--E. S. NEW YORK, _March, 1912_. STYLES OF ENGLISH ARCHITECTURE The cathedral usually grew architecturally from age to age, or rose like a phœnix from the ashes of an earlier building. “Not only is there built into a mediæval cathedral the accumulated thought of all the men who had occupied themselves with building during the preceding centuries, but you have the dream and aspiration of the bishop, abbot, or clergy for whom it was designed; the master mason’s skilled construction; the work of the carver, the painter, the glazier, the host of men who, each in his own craft, knew all that had been done before them, and had spent their lives in struggling to surpass the works of their forefathers. It is more than this: there is not one shaft, one moulding, one carving, not one chisel-mark in such a building, that was not designed specially for the place where it is found, and which was not the best that the experience of the age could invent for the purpose to which it is applied; nothing was borrowed; and nothing that was designed for one purpose was used for another. A thought or a motive peeps out through every joint; you may wander in such a building for weeks or for months together, and never know it all.”--(Fergusson.) Most English cathedrals are built in the form of a Latin cross, the arms of which are called the transepts. Over their point of intersection the central tower is usually erected. The part of the church running westward from this point to the entrance door is the nave and that running eastward to the high altar is the choir. Behind, or east of the choir, is situated the Lady-Chapel, or Chapel of the Virgin, which sometimes contained additional altars to other saints. Along the aisles we frequently find side chapels, containing tombs and chantries of dignitaries, local saints and benefactors. The nave usually consists of the main arcade; the _triforium_ (which opens into a passage or gallery); and the _clerestory_.