On the Architectural History of Chester CathedralRickman, Thomas
History
On the Architectural History of Chester Cathedral
Rickman, Thomas
Chester Cathedral
The Chapter House is peculiarly valuable, as it remains in its original
state, and appears never to have been altered. Its Vestibule is a
composition of singular beauty from the simplicity of its formation, and
is, with the arches in front to the Cloister (now filled with some
wretchedly ill drawn sashes), {9a} of the same style.
The north wall of the Choir (on account of the garden inaccessible on the
exterior side) I have not been able to examine, but from some singular
appearances visible from the City Walls, I have some reason to suppose
that it is nearly of the same date with the Vestry spoken of above, and
that the _present windows_ in the wall were introduced at a subsequent
period.
Next in order of date appear to be some of the walls, buttresses, and
interior arches, and perhaps some part of the Lady Chapel; but they have
been so altered by and intermixed with the reparation of the Chapel in
the Perpendicular style, that it requires close inspection to find them
out. But so singularly have these reparations been added, that I some
places, a part of the Early English arch, with its peculiar toothed
ornament, is framed into and forms a part of the arches of those
reparations.
Towards the conclusion of the Early English style, the piers, and arches,
and gallery of the Choir {9b} appear to have been erected; and though the
shafts of the piers appear to be nearly similar, there is a curious
difference in the mouldings of the arches on the north and south sides of
the Choir. At the period when the Early English style had in its parts
advanced to nearly the beauty of the next style, two small arches with
tracery in front, close to the screen to the Lady Chapel, were placed in
the aisle of the Choir. These are of beautiful workmanship, and nearly
resemble arches in the galleries of Westminster Abbey.
There are also two arches in the south wall of the Choir, flattish, and
of considerably broader dimensions, and having feathering, whose
mouldings are very like those of these two arches. From this
circumstance I am led to conclude that this wall also, at least as high
as the bottom of the windows, is of the same date,—say perhaps, 1280 to
1300.
From appearances, as they now remain, more particularly as there is no
trace at present of what was the Norman South Transept, I apprehend the
situation of the Church about the year 1300, (Edward I. died 1307) to
have been this:—The Nave, North Transept, and great Tower remaining in
their original state; the walls of the North Aisle of the Choir, and the
whole of the Lady Chapel, together with those of the Choir as high as the
top of the Gallery or Triforium, completed so that service could be
performed in the Lady Chapel, and perhaps, with a temporary roof, in the
Choir itself.
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