How to Visit the English CathedralsSingleton, Esther
History
How to Visit the English Cathedrals
Singleton, Esther
Cathedrals -- England
Entering through the porch in Tom Quad, cut through one of the canonical
houses, we come into a sort of ante-chapel with the organ screen before
us. Passing under the screen we have an unbroken view of the =Nave=, the
Choir with its wonderful ceiling and the handsome wheel-window rising
above the arcade and two round-headed windows at the east end.
“Christ Church is the smallest of our cathedrals; for even with the
new ante-chapel it measures about 175 feet in length. Instead of
being of the usual cruciform plan, it is now almost square,--in
fact, the length from the reredos to the organ-screen is 132 feet,
while the breadth across from the Latin Chapel to St. Lucy’s Chapel
is 108 feet. The church is made up of the shortened nave with its
two aisles, and ante-chapel, the central tower, the north transept
with its one aisle, the south transept, and the eastern half of the
church, which itself contains no less than six divisions,--the
choir, with its two aisles, the Lady-Chapel on the north, and the
Latin Chapel (or St. Catherine’s) on the north again of that, while
on the south is the small chapel of St. Lucy.
“If the unusual appearance of the cathedral is partly due to
Wolsey’s destruction, it is partly due also to its being used as a
college chapel, and partly to the fact that in general plan, and to
some extent in detail, it is Ethelred’s design, commenced seventy
years before the great developments of Norman architecture
began.”--(P. D.)
We stop at the west end of the north aisle of the nave to examine the
one remaining window designed by Van Ling.
“There are various opinions about this window, which represents
Jonah sitting under his gourd, and the town of Nineveh in the
distance. We must confess to a great admiration for it; the foliage
is fine and rich, and if it is a little over-strong in its green,
that only makes it more characteristic of its age. And, however
that may be, there cannot be two opinions as to beauty of the town
in the background, which reminds one irresistibly of Dürer; and,
with its rich brown houses, bluish roofs, touches of greenery, and
fair purple hills beyond, makes the right-hand light of the window
a picture of which one never wearies. The whole is leaded in
rectangular panes, like Bishop King’s window.”--(P. D.)
We now cross to the west end of the south aisle of the nave to see
Burne-Jones’s =Faith, Hope and Charity= window, a memorial to Edward
Denison (died 1870), son of the Bishop of Salisbury, and a pioneer
worker in the East End of London.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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