The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal seeDearmer, Percy
History
The Cathedral Church of Oxford: A description of its fabric and a brief history of the Episcopal see
Dearmer, Percy
Christ Church Cathedral (Oxford, England)
A small staircase in the south wall leads up into the charming
oak-panelled room, which is used by the chapter for meetings. In the
window of the staircase will be noticed some initial letters and other
devices in stained glass which are among the very finest of their kind.
In the upper room itself, which looks pleasantly on to a garden, are
some interesting pictures:--one of Henry VII.; another of the same
king, younger, with his queen; Henry VIII.; Elizabeth; Mary; Samuel
Fell, the father of Bishop Fell, and Dean of Christ Church himself;
Busby, the terrible headmaster of Westminster School, also connected
with this House; two portraits of the talented Dean Aldrich, and one
of Peter Martyr, whose wife was so strangely made to share the grave
with St. Frideswide. Peter Martyr had been himself an Augustinian prior:
he adopted strong reforming views, and was made Regius Professor of
Divinity here in 1549. He lived near Tom Gate; but the undergraduates
broke his windows, and he moved to the cloister, where he fortified
his garden. According to Blunt, he gave up the professorship when the
undergraduates annoyed him, but returned on being made a canon. In this
chapter-room there is a good Elizabethan table, a curious old iron safe,
and some Chippendale chairs.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, FROM THE OLD CEMETERY.]
A gateway in the cloister to the north of the chapter-house leads into
the slype, which occupies the position usual in monastic buildings
between the chapter-house and the transept. In this case the slype is a
plain barrel-vaulted passage that takes up part of the transept itself,
and forms the lower story of the choir-vestry (as it now is) within the
church. It leads into the old cemetery, whence a good view is obtained
of St. Lucy's chapel, the east end, and the chapter-house. In the garden
are the tombs of Philip Pusey, son of Dr. Pusey, and Edith Liddell,
who is commemorated in St. Catherine's window. The round-headed doorway,
now blocked up, should also be noticed: it may be one of the doorways of
Ethelred's church, and is in any case the only ancient one left.
The east end was restored in 1871 by Gilbert Scott, in accordance with the
late Norman design, of which fragments, left when the Decorated window
was inserted, still remained in the wall; but how far exactly it follows
the original no one appears to know.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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