How to Visit the English CathedralsSingleton, Esther
History
How to Visit the English Cathedrals
Singleton, Esther
Cathedrals -- England
“The third window is one of the richest in colour in the minster,
with its gorgeous arrangement of crimsons, greens and blues. There
are inscriptions by Peckett, with the date at the bottom, 1789. His
deep blues on the top lights are particularly unfortunate.
“The sixth window is also very bright. It probably contains Norman
fragments. All the windows except the fifth contain insertions by
Peckett.
“The clerestory window contains fragments and coats-of-arms.
“In the westernmost light of the second window from the west, on
the north side, are portions of an Early English Jesse window. The
wheel of this window, and those of the next five, also contain
fragments of Early English glass. And in the lower lights of the
fifth and seventh windows from the west are remains of the same
date.
“The wheels in the clerestory windows on the south side of the nave
all contain Early English glass, except the third from the west.
There is also some Early English glass in their lower lights.
“The aisles of the nave are bolder in design and altogether more
satisfactory than the nave itself. Like the nave they are unusually
wide and lofty. In the two farthest bays to the west, above which
are the western towers, the rough wooden roof, which has never been
covered with a vault, may be seen. The vault of the aisles is of
stone, with only structural ribs, finely moulded and with carved
bosses. The aisle windows are, like those of the clerestory, of the
geometrical Decorated Style, but of an earlier and simpler, uniform
design. They each contain three lights. Above the three lights are
three quatrefoils, pyramidally arranged.”--(A. C.-B.)
The second window from the east in the north aisle of the nave is said
to have been given by a guild of bell-founders, or by Richard Tunnoc
(died 1330), Lord Mayor of York. Tunnoc appears in the design kneeling
before the Archbishop and around the picture of the casting of a bell is
the legend “_Richard Tunnoc me fist_.” Above Tunnoc is a window. Bells
appear in the border of the glass.
The window at the west end of the north-aisle of the nave is also very
fine. It represents the Virgin and Child and St. Catherine with her
wheel. In the west window of the south-aisle of the nave the subject is
the Crucifixion. The head of Christ is supposed to be of the Eighteenth
Century.
The choir-aisles are very similar to those of the nave. They have stone
vaults and their windows are very beautiful. They have been described as
representing “a design of which the tracery is arrested half-way in its
process of stiffening from the curved lines of the Decorated style to
the straight of the Perpendicular.” Each window is divided into three
lights, each ending in an obtuse arch. Above these are three other
arches and above them again two quatrefoils, and above them a sexfoiled
opening.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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