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THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SAINT ALBANS
With an Account of the Fabric & a Short History of the Abbey
by the
REV. THOMAS PERKINS, M.A.
Rector of Turnworth, Dorset
Author of "Rouen," "Amiens," "Wimborne and Christchurch," Etc., Etc.
With Fifty Illustrations
[Illustration: ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH.]
[Illustration: ARMS OF THE SEE]
London: George Bell and Sons. 1903
PREFACE
The Rev. W.D. Sweeting, who had originally undertaken to write this
monograph on St. Albans, having been obliged, on account of ill-health,
to abandon the work, the Publishers asked me to write it in his stead.
My task was rendered much easier by Mr. Sweeting kindly sending me much
material that he had collected, and many valuable notes that he had
made, especially on the history of the Abbey.
My best thanks are due to the Dean for kindly allowing me permission to
examine every part of the Cathedral church, and to take the photographs
with which this book is illustrated. A few illustrations only are from
other sources, among them those on pages 9 and 11, for permission to use
which I have to thank Mr. John Murray. I have also to acknowledge the
courtesy of the vergers, Mr. Newell and Miss Davis from both of whom I
obtained much information; Miss Davis's long connection with the church,
and the interest she takes in every detail connected with it, rendered
her help most valuable. I have consulted many books on the Abbey, among
them Lord Grimthorpe's and Mr. Page's Guides, Mr. James Neale's
"Architectural Notes on St. Albans Abbey," and papers read before the
St. Albans Archaeological Society by the Rev. Henry Fowler.
THOMAS PERKINS.
TURNWORTH.
_July, 1903._
LIST OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. HISTORY OF THE BUILDING 3
II. THE EXTERIOR 23
III. THE INTERIOR 35
IV. HISTORY OF THE MONASTERY AND SEE 81
V. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD 106
INDEX 113
DIMENSIONS OF THE CATHEDRAL 115
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL FROM THE SOUTH _frontispiece_
ARMS OF THE SEE _title-page_
VIEW FROM THE NORTH-EAST BEFORE RESTORATION 2
ST. ALBANS ABBEY BEFORE 1874 3
PLAN OF THE NORMAN CHURCH 9
THE SOUTH-WEST PORTAL BEFORE THE REBUILDING OF
THE WEST FRONT 11
EXTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL BEFORE 1874 15
INTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL BEFORE 1874 16
THE ARCADE IN THE SLYPE BEFORE ITS REMOVAL 20
FLOOR TILE 21
THE ANGLE BETWEEN NAVE AND TRANSEPT 22
THE NEW WEST FRONT 23
THE SOUTH TRANSEPT AS REBUILT 27
THE LADY CHAPEL CHOIR AND TRANSEPT FROM THE SOUTH-EAST 28
VIEW FROM THE NORTH-EAST 30
THREE OLD FLOOR TILES 32
THE NAVE FROM THE WEST END 34
BASE OF INCOMPLETE PIER 37
PLAN OF PIER 37
ARCADE ON NORTH SIDE OF NAVE 38
EASTERN PART OF THE NORTH SIDE OF NAVE 39
NORTH NAVE ARCADE, WESTERN END 41
SOUTH NAVE ARCADE 43
SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE 45
HOLY WATER STOUP 46
NORTH AISLE OF NAVE 47
SAXON BALUSTER SHAFTS IN SOUTH TRANSEPT 50
DOORWAY IN SOUTH TRANSEPT 51
THE CROSSING LOOKING WESTWARD 54
THE CHOIR 55
THE WALLINGFORD SCREEN 58
KEY TO THE SCULPTURE 59
THE RAMRYGE CHANTRY 60
SOUTH AISLE OF PRESBYTERY 62
WOODEN FIGURE OF MENDICANT 63
RETRO-CHOIR 64
BASE OF THE SHRINE OF ST. AMPHIBALUS 65
BACK OF THE WATCHING LOFT 66
RAMRYGE'S CHANTRY FROM THE AISLE 67
ONE OF THE OLD WESTERN DOORS 68
LADY CHAPEL 69
PEDESTAL OF ST. ALBANS SHRINE 73
WATCHING LOFT 75
MONUMENT OF HUMPHREY, DUKE OF GLOUCESTER 77
SOUTH CHOIR AISLE 80
JOHN OF WHEATHAMPSTEAD'S CHANTRY 100
OLD FLOOR TILE 105
THE GREAT GATE 106
MONUMENT OF LORD BACON 109
THE OLD ROUND HOUSE 111
PLAN OF THE CATHEDRAL 116
* * * * *
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE NORTH-EAST BEFORE RESTORATION.]
[Illustration: ST. ALBANS ABBEY, BEFORE 1874.]
ST. ALBANS CATHEDRAL
CHAPTER I.
HISTORY OF THE BUILDING.
Long before any church stood on the site of the present cathedral, long
before the time of Albanus, who is universally allowed to have been the
first Christian martyr whose blood was shed in this island, events that
have found a place in the early history of Britain occurred in the
immediate neighbourhood of the city we call St. Albans. Here in all
probability stood the _oppidum_ or stockaded stronghold of
Cassivellaunus, who was chosen to lead the tribes of South-Eastern
Britain when Julius Caesar in the year 54 B.C. made his second descent
on the island. We all know the story, how the Britons gave Caesar so
much trouble that, when at last Roman discipline had secured the
victory, he, demanding tribute and receiving hostages as guarantees for
its payment, left Britain and never cared to venture upon any fresh
invasion. We know that the Trinobantes were the first to sue for peace,
and, abandoning Cassivellaunus, left him to bear the brunt of Caesar's
attack upon his stronghold, how this was destroyed by Caesar, and how
Cassivellaunus also was obliged to make submission to the Romans.
Nearly a century passed before any Roman legionary again set foot on the
British shores; but when at last, in the days of Claudius, A.D. 42, the
Romans invaded the island, they came to conquer and occupy all except
the northern part of Britain. In the early days of their occupation a
walled town, which was soon raised to the rank of a _municipium_, was
built on the south-western side of the Ver, and from the name of the
river was called Verulamium or Verlamium. It soon became a populous
place, for when in A.D. 61 Boadicea, the Queen of the Iceni, stung by
the insults and injuries she and her daughters had received at the hands
of the Romans, raised her own and the neighbouring tribes to take
vengeance on their oppressors and
Ran the land with Roman slaughter, multitudinous agonies;
Perish'd many a maid and matron, many a valorous legionary;
Fell the colony, city, and citadel, London, Verulam, Camulodune.
It is recorded that no less than seventy thousand fell in these three
places and the villages around them.
But her vengeance, sharp and sudden, was not allowed to pass unpunished
by the Romans, and Suetonius Paulinus, hurrying from North Wales, though
too late to save the three towns, utterly routed the forces of Boadicea
somewhere between London and Colchester.
After this Verulamium became once more a prosperous town, inhabited
partly by Romans, partly by Britons, who under Roman influence embraced
the civilization and adopted the customs of their conquerors. By whom
Christianity was first introduced into Britain we do not know; probably
it was brought from Gaul. In the reign of Diocletian a great persecution
of the Christians arose throughout the Roman empire. The edict enjoining
this persecution was promulgated in February, 303 A.D., and the
persecution lasted until the Emperor abdicated in May, 305 A.D. It was
carried out in Britain by Maximianus Herculius and Asclepiodotus, and it
was during this persecution that St. Alban won the martyr's crown.
Though the story is embellished with certain miraculous incidents which
most of us will reject as accretions of later ages, yet there seems no
reason to doubt the main facts.
Albanus, or Alban, as we generally call him, was a young soldier and a
heathen, but being a man of a pitiful heart, he gave shelter to a
certain deacon named Amphibalus, who was in danger of death. Amphibalus
returned his kindness by teaching him the outlines of the Christian
religion, which Alban accepted. When at last the persecutors had
discovered the hiding-place of Amphibalus, Alban, in order to aid his
escape, changed garments with the deacon, and allowed himself to be
taken in his stead, while Amphibalus made his way into Wales, where,
however, he was ultimately captured and was brought back by the
persecutors, who possibly intended to put him to death at Verulamium,
but for some reason which we do not understand he was executed about
four miles from the city at a spot where the village of Redbourn now
stands, the parish church of which is dedicated to him. Meanwhile Alban
was charged with aiding and abetting the escape of a blasphemer of the
Roman gods, and then and there declared that he too was a Christian. He
was ordered to offer incense on the altar of one of the Roman gods, but
refused, and as a consequence was condemned to be beheaded. The place
chosen for his execution was a grassy hill on the further side of the
river Ver. Great was the excitement among the inhabitants of Verulamium,
for as yet they had seen no Christian put to death, and Alban was,
moreover, a man of some mark in the place. So great was the crowd that
it blocked the only bridge across the stream; but Alban did not desire
to delay his death, so walked down to the river-bank. At once the waters
opened before him, and he, the executioner, and the guards passed
dry-shod to the opposite bank. This wonder so struck the executioner,
that he, throwing down his sword, declared he would not behead Alban and
also professed himself a Christian. When the band reached the hill Alban
craved water to quench his thirst, for it was a hot summer day, June
22,[1] and at once a spring burst forth at his feet. One of the soldiers
struck off the martyr's head, but his own eyes fell on the ground
together with it; the executioner who had refused to do his duty was
beheaded at the same time. These miracles are said to have so much
impressed the judge that he ordered the persecution to cease. The
traditional site of the martyrdom is covered by the north arm of the
transept of the present church, and this site is in accordance with
Beda's account, which states that St. Alban was martyred about five
hundred paces from the summit of the hill. When persecution had entirely
ceased, a few years after Alban's death, a church was built over the
spot hallowed by his blood. Beda, writing at the beginning of the eighth
century, speaks of the original church as existing, and describes it as
being a church of wonderful workmanship and worthy of the martrydom it
commemorated. But in all probability the church standing in Beda's time
was not the original one; this no doubt had been swept away during the
time of the English invasion of Britain, when, as Matthew Paris tells
us, the body of Alban was moved for safety from within the church to
some other spot, whence it was afterwards brought back and replaced in
the original grave.
[1] It must be remembered that June 22 in the year 303 A.D.
would be, as now, close to the longest day, as the alteration of
the calendar known as the new style simply made the equinox
occur on the same day of the month as in 325 A.D.
That the spot was held in some reverence as early as the fifth century
is proved by the conduct of Germanus, Bishop of Auxerre. A synod was
held at Verulamium in the year 429 A.D. to condemn the "Pelagian heresy"
which had budded forth anew in the island, having had its origin in the
teaching of the British monk Pelagius towards the end of the fourth
century. Germanus and Lupus, Bishop of Troyes, attended this Council and
refuted the followers of Pelagius. It is said that Germanus opened the
coffin of the martyr and deposited in it some precious relics, receiving
in return for them some relics from the coffin, and a piece of turf cut
from the site of the martyrdom.
From this time we hear nothing for several centuries of the church or
the neighbouring town of Verulamium, save that after the Teutonic
conquest the town was known by the name of Werlamceaster,
Watlingceaster, or Waetlingaceaster, the two latter names being derived
from that of the Roman road, the Watling Street that runs through it.
The site of the martyrdom also received a new name--Holmehurst or
Derswold.
The next event recorded in connection with our subject is the founding
of a Benedictine monastery by Offa II., King of the Mercians, about the
year 793 A.D. He searched for and found the coffin that contained the
martyr's bones. This, as already stated, had been removed from the
original church dedicated to his memory, in order to save it from
destruction at the hands of the Teutonic invaders, and had remained
concealed, its very position forgotten, until it was miraculously
revealed. The coffin was then opened; the martyr's body and the relics
given by Germanus were found therein, and thus the identity of the
remains with those of Alban was established beyond doubt. Round the
martyr's head Offa placed a golden circlet whereon were written the
words: "Hoc est caput Sancti Albani." A reliquary richly decorated with
precious stones was made to receive the body, and this was then
deposited in the then existing church, which Offa repaired so that it
might serve as a temporary resting-place until a grander church could be
built. Offa had made a journey to Rome to get the Pope's consent to the
foundation and endowment of the monastery.[2] At this time also Alban
was canonized, so that henceforth he may be rightly spoken of as Saint
Alban.
[2] A payment known as Peter's Pence had first been levied by
the King of the West Saxons in 727, and was a tax of one penny
on each family that owned lands producing thirty pence per
annum; its object was the support of a Saxon College at Rome.
Offa now induced the Pope to allow the pence so collected from
his kingdom to be paid to the Abbey of St. Alban instead of the
Saxon College at Rome. The payment was called Peter's Pence
because it was paid on August 1st (the day dedicated to _St.
Peter ad Vincula_), the day on which the relics of St. Alban had
been discovered.
All that Offa seems to have been able to do besides repairing the church
was to erect domestic buildings for his monks, who in course of time
numbered a hundred. We have no record of any partial rebuilding, or
enlargement even, of the church of Offa's day. From the fact that
certain remains of it were incorporated in the present building, and
that these were of the character generally called "Saxon," there is
little doubt that the church of the monastery was not the little church
erected in the fourth century over the martyr's grave, but one of later
date, probably the one described by Beda as standing in his day, built
in the latter part of the sixth or in the seventh century. We have no
further record of this church, but we know that the ninth Abbot, Eadmer,
began to collect materials for rebuilding the church; but the work was
not begun until the time of the fourteenth Abbot, Paul of Caen, who was
appointed by William I. So enthusiastically did he work, that in the
short space of eleven years (1077-88) the church was rebuilt. The
rapidity of the building was no doubt chiefly due to the fact that there
was no need of hewing and squaring stone, for the Roman bricks from the
ruins of the old city of Verulam were ready at hand, and the timber
collected by Paul's five predecessors was well seasoned. It is said that
the new church was not dedicated until the year 1115, but it is hard to
believe that so long a space of time as twenty-seven years would be
allowed to elapse between the completion of the building and the
dedication. It is possible there may be some error in this date.
We can form a good idea of this Norman church. It was like several of
the other cathedral and abbey churches built at the same time, of vast
size, far grander than their prototype in Normandy, St. Stephen's at
Caen. The following table gives approximately the dimensions of some of
these churches:
Length of Number of Bays. Total
Nave. Nave. Presbytery. Apse. Length.
St. Stephen's, Caen 193 9 2 ... 290
Canterbury 185 9 10 5 290
Winchester 318 14 3 5 ...
St. Albans 275 13 4 ... 460
Bury St. Edmund's 300 15 4 3 490
The church consisted of a nave with aisles; the arches of the main
arcade were semicircular, the piers massive and rectangular; there were
no mouldings, the orders of the arches, like the piers, having
rectangular corners. There were possibly two western towers, which
stood, like those of Rouen and Wells, outside the aisles on the north
and south respectively, not at the western ends of the aisles (a far
more common position), thus giving a much greater width and imposing
appearance to the west front.
The existence of western towers of Norman date has been doubted by some
antiquaries; some indeed imagine that John de Cella's thirteenth-century
west front was built several bays further to the west than the Norman
façade, and that the foundations of the unfinished towers were laid of
old material by him. It is impossible to be absolutely certain on this
point, but the argument sometimes brought forward that the nave was
inordinately long for one of Norman date may be answered by mention of
the fact that the Norman naves at Bury and Winchester were even longer,
and that generally the Norman builders delighted in long structural
naves, the eastern bays of which, however, were, together with the space
beneath the towers, used for the choir or seats for the monks, the
eastern part of the church beyond the crossing being generally occupied
by the presbytery and the sanctuary where the high altar stood. In after
times, however, considerable eastward extensions were made, as at
Canterbury, and the monks' seats were then in many cases moved eastward
into the part of the church beyond the tower, the rood-screen being
stretched across the church between the eastern piers that supported the
tower.[3]
[3] The chief argument against the belief that western towers
existed at St. Albans is that no documentary record of them is
found. On the other hand it may be said that, whether the towers
were built or not at the same time as the rest of the church, it
is far more likely that John de Cella and William of Trumpington
would have lengthened the church eastward than westward, when we
find so many instances of eastward extensions during the
thirteenth century, and of some before the twelfth century
closed. The plan given in the text, assuming the existence of
Norman towers, is that adopted by Sir Gilbert Scott, who had the
opportunity of examining the foundations when restoring the
church; his opinion was that the foundations were of Norman
date. Of one thing we may be certain, that if finished western
towers ever existed, they were of Norman date. For none were
carried to completion by William of Trumpington.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE NORMAN CHURCH.
From Sir Gilbert Scott's Lectures. (By permission of Mr. John Murray.)]
The transept had no aisles either on its eastern or western side; the
eastern termination differed much from anything in existence now.
Mr. Prior in his "History of Gothic Art in England" tells us that two
types of east end were to be found in the Anglo-Norman churches, both
brought from the Continent, one the chevet prevalent in Northern France,
the other derived originally from fourth and fifth century churches of
the East, passing to Lombardy in the ninth century, and then along the
Rhine and even reaching Normandy. Such was the original eastern
termination of St. Stephen's, Caen; such may still be seen in St.
Nicholas', Caen. This east end consisted of a number of parallel aisles,
each with its own apse at its eastern end. "Norman use had squared the
aisle endings of the choir two bays beyond the cross, the apse
projecting its half circle beyond this, as at St. Etienne's, Caen, and
in this form Lanfranc's Canterbury had been built."[4]
[4] Prior's "History of Gothic Art in England," p. 63.
In St. Albans this plan was further developed; from each arm of the
transept two apses projected eastward, the outer ones consisting only of
a semicircular projection from the transept, the inner ones of a
rectangular bay from which the semicircular part ran eastward. The choir
aisles, as we should now call them, consisted of four bays, beyond which
they ended in a projection semicircular within, but rectangular when
seen from the outside, the walls being thickened at the corners. These
aisles were divided from the presbytery not by open arcading but by
solid walls. The presbytery itself terminated in a semicircle projecting
beyond the ends of the aisles. This extended as far as the centre of the
present retro-choir.
Above the crossing rose the central tower, much as we see it to-day,
save that it was probably crowned with a pyramidal cap rising from its
outside walls. Probably also the tower as well as the rest of the church
was covered with whitewashed plaster, thus hiding the material of which
it was built--the Roman bricks of which mention has been already made.
These bricks surpass in hardness and durability those of modern days,
and are of different size and shape from those we are acquainted with.
Those used in St. Albans are of two sizes, 17 × 8 × 2 and 11 × 5½ × 2.
The joints are wide, the mortar between the courses being almost as
thick as the bricks. The window jambs and the piers were built or faced
with brick; even the staircases were of brick. What stone was used is
clunch, from Tottenhoe in Bedfordshire, which, according to Lord
Grimthorpe, is admirably suited for interior work, but absolutely
worthless for exterior, as it decays very soon, and if it gets damp is
shivered into powder by frost.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH-WESTERN PORTAL, BEFORE THE REBUILDING OF THE WEST
FRONT. From a drawing by W.S. Weatherley, in Sir G. Scott's "Lectures on
Mediaeval Architecture." (By permission of Mr. John Murray.)]
The Norman church, finished as we have seen in 1088, stood without
change for rather more than a century. Then changes began. Abbot John de
Cella (1195-1214) pulled down the west front and began to build a new
one in its place. He laid the foundation of the whole front, but then
went on with the north side first. The north porch was nearly finished
in his time; the central porch was carried up as far as the spring of
the arch; the southern porch was carried hardly any way up from the
foundations.[5] The porches are described by those who saw them before
Lord Grimthorpe swept away the whole west front as some of the choicest
specimens of thirteenth-century work in England. The mouldings were of
great delicacy, and were enriched with dog-tooth ornament. It is said
that Abbot John was not a good man of business, and that he was sorely
robbed and cheated by his builders, and so had not money enough to
finish the work that he had planned. To his successor, William of
Trumpington, it therefore fell to carry on the work. He was a man of a
more practical character, though not equal to his predecessor in matters
of taste. He finished the main part of the western front. Oddly enough
no dog-tooth ornament was used in the central and southern porches, and
the character of the carved foliage differs also from that of the north
porch. In Abbot John's undoubted work the curling leaves overlap, and
have strongly defined stems resembling the foliage of Lincoln choir,
while that of Abbot William's time had the ordinary character of the
Early English style. There is evidence to show that he intended to vault
the church with a stone roof; this may be seen from the marble vaulting
shafts on the north side of the nave between the arches of the main
arcade, which, however, are not carried higher than the string-course
below the triforium. The idea of a stone vault was, however, abandoned
before the two eastern Early English bays on the south side were built,
for no preparation for vaulting shafts exists there.
[5] Sir Gilbert Scott was of the opinion that the south porch
was also John de Cella's work.
Abbot John de Cella had begun to build afresh the western towers, or,
according to some authorities, to build the first western towers that
the church ever had; we have no record of their completion, and it is
said that Abbot William abandoned the idea. We have only the foundations
by which we can determine their size. William of Trumpington transformed
the windows of the aisles into Early English ones. He also added a
wooden lantern to the tower, somewhat in the style of the wooden octagon
on the central tower of Ely.
At some time, but we do not know exactly when, the Church or Chapel of
St. Andrew adjoining the north nave aisle of the monks' church,
extending as far east as the sixth bay, was built for the use of the
parishioners, who had no right to enter the monastic church. This Church
of St. Andrew opened into the north aisle of the Abbey Church, being
separated from it by an arcade of four arches. It had a nave with aisle
and chancel. Its total length was about 140 feet, its width about 61
feet. It is conjectured that the north-western tower was converted into
a kind of antechapel or entrance porch for the Church of St. Andrew.
There was a door leading from the aisle of the Abbey Church into the
chancel of St. Andrew's; this door, walled up, may still be seen in the
fifth bay from the west end. In order to avoid the necessity of
returning again to the history of this church, it may here be stated
that it was rebuilt by John Wheathampstead after he had been re-elected
to the office of Abbot in 1451; and that it was destroyed after the
dissolution of the monastery, when there was no longer any need for it,
as the parishioners bought the Abbey Church for parochial use. The place
of the old arcading was then taken by a blank wall without any windows;
this was pulled down and the present wall built by Lord Grimthorpe.
In the latter half of the thirteenth century the reconstruction of the
eastern end was begun by Abbot John of Hertford. Here, as in many other
churches, the Norman choir was too short for thirteenth-century
requirements. The walls of the presbytery were raised and its
high-pitched roof converted into a flat one. The church was gradually
extended eastward by Abbots Roger of Norton and John of Berkhampstead;
first the Saint's Chapel was built, then the retro-choir, and finally
the Lady Chapel, which was finished by Abbot Hugh of Eversden in 1326.
Another change was necessitated by an event which took place on St.
Paulinus' Day, October 10th, of the year 1323. For on that day a
calamity such as had never before happened befell the church. The
celebration of Mass at an altar of the Blessed Virgin was just over, a
great multitude of people, men and women, still being in the church,
when two of the Norman piers of the main arcade on the south side fell
outwards one after the other with a great crash, and about the space of
an hour afterwards the wooden roof of the nave which had been supported
by these columns also fell; the piers themselves had crushed the south
wall of the aisle and the cloisters, so that a complete wreck was made
of the south-eastern part of the church westward of the tower. But this
disaster was accompanied by a great marvel, for though many persons were
standing close by, not one was injured; and a still more wonderful thing
is recorded: the monk whose duty it was to guard the shrine of St.
Amphibalus, which at that time stood in the nave, had been celebrating
at the altar--he had finished even to the washing of the sacred
vessels--when he saw the columns fall; he withdrew a little from the
altar and received no harm. Some of the wreckage fell on the shrine of
St. Amphibalus, and though the marble pillars supporting the canopy were
broken, yet the chest which contained his relics suffered no harm. This
wonderful preservation of life and limb and shrine was naturally
attributed to the intervention of the blessed martyr St. Amphibalus.
Abbot Hugh of Eversden began to rebuild this ruined part of the church,
and this accounts for the five bays of the nave arcading westward of the
rood-screen being in fourteenth-century style. He did not live to finish
all this work, but it was carried on by his successor, Richard of
Wallingford (1326-1335), and finished by the next Abbot, Michael of
Mentmore, about 1345. The present rood-screen, which probably took the
place of a previously existing one of Norman date, was built in 1360 by
Thomas de la Mare. No further change of importance was made until the
time of John of Wheathampstead, who was Abbot from 1420 to 1440, and
again from 1451 to 1464. He left his marks in various parts of the
Abbey, and for the most part his work was bad: he did almost as much to
injure the Abbey as the nineteenth-century restorers who swept away much
of his work have done. He rebuilt all the upper part of the west front,
and inserted Perpendicular windows at each end of the transept; he
turned the high-pitched roofs of nave and transepts into flat ones, and
lowered the slope of the roofs of the aisles. His object in doing this
was to be able to use the old beams again whose ends were decayed, and
which were shortened by cutting off the unsound parts. The result of
this was that the Norman triforium arches on the north side were thrown
open to the sky; these he filled with Perpendicular tracery, converting
them into windows. The tracery still remains, although the new roof has
the same slope as the original one, and the triforium is now again
inclosed beneath it. He also pulled down the wooden octagon on the
central tower. His chantry on the south side of the high altar was
probably erected soon after his death.
Abbot William of Wallingford (1476-1484) built the high altar screen,
carrying out a plan which John of Wheathampstead had not been able to
accomplish. The only addition made after this to the Abbey is the
chantry of Thomas Ramryge, who became Abbot in 1492. The exact date of
its construction is not known, all records of the Abbey during Ramryge's
rule having perished; but from its style it is generally supposed to
have been built about the year 1520. During the reign of Henry VIII. all
the monasteries were dissolved; first the smaller, then the more
important ones, among them that of St. Albans. The fortieth and last
Abbot of St. Albans, Richard Boreman of Stevenage, surrendered the Abbey
on December 5th, 1539, he and the monks receiving pensions as
compensation.
[Illustration: EXTERIOR OF LADY CHAPEL WHEN USED AS THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL
BEFORE 1874. (From the Official Guide to the Great Northern Railway.)]
In February of the following year the King granted to Sir Richard Lee
all the monastic buildings, but not the Abbey Church or the adjoining
Chapel of St. Andrew, with all the land lying round the Abbey Church.
Lee promptly proceeded to destroy all the domestic buildings. The church
remained in the possession of the Crown till 1553, when the town
obtained a charter from Edward VI. This, among other provisions,
empowered it to erect a grammar school within the church or in some
other convenient place. The town authorities thereupon converted the
Lady Chapel and the retro-choir into the grammar school. A passage was
cut through the retro-choir, bounded by brick walls on either side; this
was used as a public pathway until 1874, when it was closed, and again
became part of the church. The part to the east of the passage served as
the grammar school until 1870. The mayor and burgesses by the same
charter received the Abbey Church, in return for £400, to be used as
their parish church; and in May, 1553, the first rector, George
Wetherall, took charge of the building.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE LADY CHAPEL BEFORE 1874.
(From the Official Guide to the Great Northern Railway.)]
The parishioners thus found themselves in possession of an enormous
building which they had not sufficient money to keep in proper repair.
In 1612, and again in 1681, briefs or letters patent were issued by
royal authority, ordering collections to be made in all churches in
England for the repair of St. Albans Church. In 1689 a grant was made by
William and Mary. These sums were spent on various repairs, such as
altering the belfry windows, "filling up" with earth "the hollow in the
wing," that is, raising the level of the floor of the south arm of the
transept. In 1695 similar work was done in the north aisle; in 1704 a
new window, a wooden one, was inserted in the south end of the transept,
in place of Wheathampstead's, which had been blown in by a gale during
the previous year. There are records of £100 being spent in recasting
some of the bells between 1705 and 1707.
Money was again collected in 1721 by letters patent, and this was spent
on repairing the ceilings. About the same time a legacy was spent in
repaving the nave, and the west ends of the aisles were blocked by brick
walls. Some slight repairs were done about 1764, when a fresh collection
was made.
More extensive repairs were made in 1832: the roof was releaded, such of
the clerestory windows as had been closed were reglazed, and the south
window of the transept was rebuilt in stone. The choir, after the
repairs, was opened for service in 1833. The nave to the west of the
rood-screen was more or less in a dilapidated condition, protected by
the releaded roof, but not used. The presbytery had been fitted up in
Georgian style as a chancel, the organ stood in the north arm of the
transept, and high pews filled the choir westward as far as the
rood-screen. This was the condition of the part of the church which was
used up to 1870.
In 1856 a scheme was started for getting the Abbey Church raised to
cathedral rank, and also for restoring the fabric. Mr. (afterwards Sir)
Gilbert Scott was appointed architect, and was empowered to do what he
thought most pressing as far as funds would allow; the flat roof of the
north aisle was renewed, drainage attended to, and foundations
strengthened; the floor at the south end of the transept was lowered--it
will be remembered that it had been raised in 1692--the vaults were
filled with concrete, and the floor repaved. The presbytery was repaved
with tiles copied from some old ones. The Georgian fittings were removed
to the nave; fragments of the tabernacles, which we now see over the
doors leading from the aisles into the presbytery, having been
discovered, the tabernacles were reconstructed of the old with some new
material. But more important work had to be undertaken in 1870. On
Sunday, July 31st, the sound of cracking was heard in the tower, and Mr.
J. Chapple, the clerk of the works, went up the next day to London to
see Scott and asked him to come down at once to examine the tower;
plaster was put over the crack to see if it was increasing or not. There
were soon signs that the mischief was getting worse, and Scott ordered
the tower to be shored up with timber, and temporary brick walls to be
built below it. It seemed that the rubble of the eastern piers had been
made of mortar which had turned into dust, and that a big hole had been
cut in the south-eastern pier. This, according to Lord Grimthorpe, had
apparently been done with the intention of demolishing the tower,
probably soon after the time of the dissolution of the monastery, for
the hole contained timber shores which were sufficient to support the
tower while the workmen were enlarging the hole, but which were probably
intended to be set on fire and burnt away, thus allowing the workmen to
escape before the tower fell. This wood was found partially decayed, and
probably to its state the settlement of the tower was partially due. The
hole was, by Scott's direction, filled with bricks laid in cement, and
cement was poured in to fill up all the interstices; some of the decayed
rubble was cut out of the piers and brickwork put in to take its place:
the walls were tied with Yorkshire flagstone and iron rods, and were
grouted with liquid cement wherever possible. It was an anxious time for
those in charge of the work; it was only after many days and nights of
incessant labour, that they felt sure that the sinking of the tower was
arrested and that the new work was holding up the weight.
In 1875 it was discovered that the south-west clerestory was beginning
to crumble away. Lord Grimthorpe had this shored up at his own expense.
A new committee was soon after this appointed, and in March, 1877, a
faculty was granted to this committee "to repair the church and fit it
for cathedral and parochial services." The first Bishop, Dr. Claughton,
who up to this time had been Bishop of Rochester, choosing the northern
of the two parts into which his diocese was divided, was enthroned as
Bishop of St. Albans on June 12th, 1877, and on the following day the
restoration of the nave was begun. The church was in a very bad state:
the weight of the roof and injudicious repairs had thrust the clerestory
walls about forty inches out of the vertical plane. There was much
controversy at the time as to what should be done, and in the middle of
it Sir Gilbert Scott died, in March, 1878. In May, however, the roof
having been lifted, the leaning walls were forced up into a vertical
position by hydraulic pressure. Some of the restorers were in favour of
retaining a flat roof; others advocated putting on a high-pitched one
again, raising its ridge to the height of the original Norman roof, as
indicated by the weather marks on the tower. Fortunately the latter
course was adopted; fortunately because the church, seen from the
outside, lacks height in proportion to its length, and the ridge of the
roof now visible above the parapets has given it some of the extra
height it so much needed. The subsequent raising of the transept and
presbytery roofs on the other three sides of the tower was necessitated
by the raising of the roof of the nave.
Lord Grimthorpe drew up a list of "symptoms of ruin," twenty-two in
number, which it would take too much space to reproduce here; but unless
his account is exaggerated, it would seem that scarcely any part of the
building save the tower could be looked on as secure. He applied for a
new faculty which would give him unlimited power to "restore, repair,
and refit the church." This faculty was granted, and he exercised his
powers to the full; and as a result, though the church has been made
sound and secure, probably for many centuries to come, yet many of its
most interesting features have been destroyed, the most terrible damage
having been done in the transept.
The west front which he rebuilt, though not altogether satisfactory, yet
is greatly superior in design to his subsequent work at the south and
north ends of the transept. These originally had corner turrets,
octagonal in plan; these turrets were pulled down and square ones,
finished by pyramidal caps, put in their place. The entire south front
of the transept was pulled down and rebuilt, and a new window consisting
of five lancets occupying its whole width inserted. The central light
rises high into the gable and above the level of the inner ceiling. The
lancets on either side are intermediate in height between the central
and side ones when they are seen from without, but when seen from within
the tops of all are of the same height, as they could not be raised
above the level of the ceiling. The parts of the three middle lancets
seen from without above this level are backed up with black felt across
the ceiling, and their upper parts light the space between the ceiling
and the high roof. This window is a feeble imitation of the "Five
Sisters" of York, and is utterly out of place in the narrow transept at
St. Albans; but bad as this south window is, the one at the north end of
the transept is worse. Here Lord Grimthorpe inserted a circular window,
the design being such as a child might make who was given a sheet of
cardboard with a large circle drawn on it, which he was requested to
cover symmetrically with a number of half-crowns, shillings, and
sixpences. Another piece of unnecessary alteration was the destruction
of the slype at the south end and the re-erection of its disjointed
members as curiosities in the new work, its western doorway, with an
added order, having been let into the centre of the south wall of the
transept, and the arcading placed in two different positions.
[Illustration: THE ARCADE IN THE SLYPE BEFORE ITS REMOVAL.]
More satisfactory is the work in the Lady Chapel and the space sometimes
called the antechapel; here the old carving had been terribly mutilated
by many generations of schoolboys, and the new work which has been put
in is good of its kind, and distinctive in its treatment. Lord
Grimthorpe vaulted the Lady Chapel in stone. Much other work was done by
him in various parts of the building. He rebuilt the clerestory windows
of the presbytery and some of those in the nave; introduced windows into
the blank walls at the western part of the nave, both on the north and
south, for which he deserves commendation, as the original reason for no
windows having existed here was only that the monastic buildings, now
destroyed, abutted against the south aisle of the nave, and the Church
of St. Andrew stood on the north side; when this church was pulled down
a plain wall was built, and the thrust of the roof had forced this and
the original wall on the south side outwards, after the buildings which
had acted as buttresses had been removed.
One piece of modern restoration was not done by Lord Grimthorpe, namely
that of the Wallingford screen behind the high altar. The statues on
this having been destroyed and the screen itself damaged, Mr. H.H.
Gibbs, now Lord Aldenham, offered to restore it, working under Lord
Grimthorpe's faculty. After a time a dispute arose between them, chiefly
over the introduction of a statue of Christ on the Cross in the centre
of the screen, and the erection of an altar with a stone top below it.
This led to a lawsuit, the final result of which was that Mr. Gibbs was
allowed to finish the screen in his own way, but not to do anything to
any other part of the church, a thing he wished to do. The altar is not
yet in position; when this is placed where it is intended to stand, the
work of restoration will be complete, and nave, choir and presbytery,
and Lady Chapel will then alike be capable of being used for service,
forming in reality three distinct and fully fitted churches under one
roof, the retro-choir being intended for use as a chapter-house whenever
a chapter shall be created.
[Illustration: FLOOR TILE WITH ARMS OF BEAUCHAMP.]
[Illustration: ANGLE BETWEEN NAVE AND TRANSEPT.]
[Illustration: THE NEW WEST FRONT.]