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)
=The Pulpit=.--Christ Church is fortunate in possessing an old oak pulpit,
escaping thus the garish ventures in marble which have been disastrous
to so many other cathedrals. This pulpit is Jacobean (c. 1635). It is a
remarkable piece of workmanship, elaborately carved, and well designed:
the grotesques on the panels should be especially noticed, as well as the
light elevated canopy, surmounted by a pelican, which was at one time
transferred to the episcopal throne, and has recently been restored to
its original use.
=The Tower= is not square, the nave and choir sides being wider than
those of the transepts. For this practical reason (and not because of
the transitional character of the work, though transitional it is)
the north and south arches are pointed, while the east and west are
round-headed. The tower arches seem originally to have sprung from the
imposts ornamented with trefoil leaves which can still be seen, though
they were cut through when the present capitals were introduced at the
time of the Norman restoration. The Norman shafts and capitals were
attached to the older and ruder piers. Round these piers are the shafts
of very firm and graceful proportions, their capitals decorated with
foliage. The lower parts of the vaulting shafts of the great piers are cut
off and finished with a narrow beading, which shows that the ritual choir
originally stood here, and did not correspond with the structural choir.
[Illustration: CHOIR AND NAVE, LOOKING WEST.]
The lantern, which had been blocked up, was reopened at the time of the
recent improvements, and adds considerably to the appearance of the
church. Its first stage is ornamented with an arcade of stout Norman
shafts, whose capitals are carved with a breadth and simplicity well
suited to the height at which they stand: the arcade is bounded above
and below by a heavy round string course. The upper stage has another
arcade, of four large round arches on each side, the corner ones pierced
as windows. Above is an early sixteenth century roof: it is divided
into square panels, in most of which marks of the old ornaments (in
the form of Maltese crosses like those of the nave roof) can be clearly
discerned. At the springing of the main arches Fifteenth Century corbels
have been inserted. In the south-east pier of the tower occurs the break
in the masonry which marks, it is thought, the cessation of the building
operations when Ethelred was driven out of England by Sweyn. It can be
clearly seen from the south choir aisle. The tooling of the masonry half
way up the tower has also been found to be marked with the cross lines,
which distinguish Saxon from Norman mason's work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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