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
In this transept are monuments for--(north wall), Bishop STILLINGFLEET,
(1689-1699,) “jam tibi, quicumque hæc leges, nisi et Europæ et literati
orbis hospes es, ipse per se notus;” and (east wall), Bishop HOUGH,
(1717-1743,) by ROUBILIAC. A full-length effigy of the Bishop reclines
on the top of a sepulchre, upheld by a figure of Religion. The
inscription gives due praise to the “unbounded charity, the courteous
affability, and the engaging condescension” of the Bishop,--the
“ever-memorable President of Magdalen College, Oxford, who
providentially for this nation opposed the rage of Popish superstition
and tyranny.” A small bas-relief below the effigy represents the
President’s expulsion from Magdalen. There is also a tablet for Dean
HOOK, (died 1828,) brother of the more celebrated Theodore Hook.
VII. A flight of steps, rendered necessary by the elevation of the
crypt, which extends eastward from this point, ascends to the
_choir-screen_, between the two eastern piers of the tower; an atrocious
composition of lath and plaster, erected in 1812, and shortly, no doubt,
to be removed. Some of the small figures in the frieze were taken from
misereres in the choir, and will eventually be returned.
Passing beyond the screen, we enter the most interesting portion of the
cathedral. The whole building, east of the tower, is far richer and
better in detail than any part of the nave. The convent, in all
probability, was receiving larger sums from the pilgrims to the shrine
of St. Wulfstan during the thirteenth century, when the choir and the
parts connected with it were built, than during the fourteenth, when the
nave was erected. By that time the neighbouring churches of Hereford and
Gloucester had each their great shrine[72], which must have attracted
much of the wealth that would otherwise have found its way into the
treasury of Worcester.
Bishop William of Blois is recorded as having “begun the new work of the
front” in the year 1224. The plan of the new building involved a great
extension of the cathedral eastward. Beyond the site of the crypt, the
work was carried “to a length equal to double that of the Norman
presbytery, (exclusive of the probable Lady-chapel of the latter,) and
so adjusted as to place the central tower of the church exactly midway
between the east and west extremities of the entire building[73].”
Eastern transepts were also adopted. Professor Willis has been the first
to shew the order in which, in all probability, this new work was
erected. This is indicated by a difference in the moulding of the
vaulting-ribs. “The transverse vault-ribs of the side aisles and centre
of the work between the great tower and the small transepts (namely, the
present choir) have a hollow mold in their soffits; and this is also the
case
[Illustration: PART OF CHOIR AND LADY-CHAPEL.]
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