The Three Choirs: A Handbook to the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: A Complete Description of the Buildings, a History of Each Diocese and Biographical Notices of the BishopsKing, R. J. (Richard John)
Religion
The Three Choirs: A Handbook to the Cathedrals of Gloucester, Hereford, and Worcester: A Complete Description of the Buildings, a History of Each Diocese and Biographical Notices of the Bishops
entrance being through the central arch. All the arches are enriched
with foiled openings, and with intricate and very beautiful leafage.
There are Purbeck shafts at the angles, heads at the spring of the
arches, and a series of seated figures, under canopies, much mutilated,
between the outer arch at the entrance and the trefoil within. Inside,
the three divisions are groined, with bosses at the intersections; and
each bay has three blind arches in the wall, between which piers project
to some distance. The reliquary ends before reaching the north-west
angle of the transept in which the square Norman turret projects,
leading upward to the arcaded passage and to the triforium. (Compare the
projecting turrets at the angles of the transepts in Worcester
Cathedral.) At the north-east angle the Perpendicular work joins the
reliquary; a bracket for a figure is placed between it and the steps
leading to the chapel, and a shield bearing Abbot Parker’s arms has
taken the place of the last corbel-head.
Three Norman windows remain at the east end of the chapel opening from
this transept. Below them is a Perpendicular reredos, with three niches,
from which the figures have disappeared. This chapel (as will be seen
from the Plan) is of less size than that opening from the south
transept, and the altar (owing to the polygonal apse) was not due east.
A door opens south, into the choir-aisle; and in the opposite wall is a
very good Perpendicular doorway, leading to rooms now used as vestries.
The Perpendicular cresting, and the angels bearing scrolls in the hollow
moulding, are good, and should be noticed. The Norman arch in the wall
above this doorway, and the Norman work in the opposite wall, (which
should be examined from the choir-aisle as well as from the chapel,)
apparently indicate changes in this part of the building before the
alteration of the entire transept, which it is not easy to explain. The
groin edges of the vault of this chapel are carried down the piers in a
manner of which no example occurs elsewhere.
The steps into the chapel, and a similar ascent into the choir-aisle,
were rendered necessary from the height of the crypt, (§ XVII.), which
extends under the whole of the building east of the tower, with the
exception of the Lady-chapel. The very peculiar doorways opening to the
aisle resemble those in the opposite transept. Within the smaller of
these arches, on a level with the top of the stairs, is a small stone
lectern, from which, it is probable, the pilgrims were addressed as they
passed upwards to the shrine of Edward II.[15]
The Perpendicular screen below the tower-arch opening to the transept
enclosed a chapel, now used as a vestry. A similar chapel existed
beneath the south tower-arch. Under a Perpendicular window on the west
side of the transept is a monument for JOHN
[Illustration: THE CHOIR.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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