The Cathedrals of Great Britain: Their History and ArchitectureDitchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
History
The Cathedrals of Great Britain: Their History and Architecture
Ditchfield, P. H. (Peter Hampson)
Cathedrals -- Great Britain; Church architecture -- Great Britain
(1478-1503) was the builder of the famous Market Cross and the Grammar
School. Bishop Sherbourne (1508-1536) who favoured not the "new
Religion," employed the Bernardi, an Italian family who had previously
settled in Flanders, to decorate his church, and we shall see some of
their work in the Cathedral. Then came the trouble of the Reformation
period, when altars were destroyed, shrines pillaged of their gold and
ornaments, and the whole church ransacked of its treasures. Further
spoliation and destruction were wrought by the Parliamentary soldiers
under Waller, who "plundered the Cathedral, seized upon the vestments
and ornaments of the church, together with the consecrated plate
serving for the altar; they left not so much as a cushion for the
pulpit, nor a chalice for the Blessed Sacraments; the common soldiers
broke down the organs, and dashing the pipes with their poleaxes,
scoffingly said, 'Hark, how the organs go!' ... On the Tuesday
following, after the sermon, possessed and transported by a
Bacchanalian fury, they ran up and down the church with their swords
drawn, defacing the monuments of the dead, hacking and hewing the
seats and stalls, and scraping the painted walls. Sir William Waller
and the rest of the commanders standing by as spectators and approvers
of their barbarous impieties." Bishop King was prelate at this time;
his palace and goods were destroyed, and he was treated with cruel
indignity. In the seventeenth-century the north-west tower fell, and
the central tower was so insecure that the upper part of the spire
was removed and rebuilt by Wren. Since then several attempts at
reparation have been made. At length in 1860 a terrible disaster
befell, and the central tower and spire collapsed. It was rebuilt by
Sir G. Scott with much care, and may be said to be an exact copy of
the old, and in addition to other improvements the north-west tower
has been rebuilt.
[Illustration Chichester]
THE EXTERIOR
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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