THE EXTERIOR.
The visitor who wishes to obtain, at first sight, the most impressive
view of the Cathedral Church of St. Alban, should alight at the London
and North-Western Station, at which all the trains from Euston and many
of those from King's Cross arrive. This station is about half a mile
south of the city, and from it a road runs up Holywell Hill, which,
passing eastwards of the church, leads to the centre of the city. But a
road running off to the left before reaching the top of the hill leads
past the south side to the entrance at the west front of the Cathedral.
Seen from the south the church, though it does not actually stand quite
on the summit, seems to crown with its enormous length the ridge of hill
to the north. Most of those who visit St. Albans for the first time feel
a sense of disappointment. The church has no far-projecting buttresses
to give light and shade, no flying buttresses or pinnacles like those
that lend such a charm to most French and many English churches. All is
severely plain, partly on account of the very early time at which the
greater part of the existing church was built, partly on account of the
material used for its walls. Abbot Paul of Caen, who designed it,
trusted entirely to mass and proportion for the effect he wished to
produce. But we do not see it as he designed it, and possibly built it.
When we remember that he came from Caen, and seems to have used St.
Stephen's Church, at that time recently built by Duke William, as a
model, though he planned his own church on a grander scale, he must have
contemplated two western towers even if he did not erect them--though,
as previously stated, there is a division of opinion on the part of
authorities on this subject. These western towers, if they were built,
as well as the central one, would be crowned by pyramidal caps; and such
towers, finely proportioned, would give the church the height which it
so much needs, and the lack of which we feel so acutely to-day. The
raising of the roofs at the time of the restoration to their original
pitch was an undoubted gain, for without it the building looked lower
and longer even than it does now. The church as we see it has been sadly
injured by Lord Grimthorpe's work at both ends of the transepts, and
whatever may be said about the western front in itself, yet no one can
deny that, had the church been flanked by two towers standing, as at
Wells and Rouen, outside the line of the aisles, even though the front
itself were as plain as that of St. Stephen's at Caen, it would have
been far more impressive.
There is another point in which the church as it exists differs from the
church as it might have been seen soon after Abbot Paul had built it.
Then its walls were covered without as well as within with plaster,
within richly decorated with colour, and without whitewashed. How
different it must have looked with its vast mass seen from a distance
rising above the wooded slopes, white as a solid block of Carara marble
gleaming in the sun, and the lead-covered roofs of nave, transept,
choir, and towers shining with a silvery lustre. Many modern restoring
architects strongly object to plaster, and many a rough wall both
external and internal, which the builder never intended to be seen, has
been scraped and pointed under the idea that plaster is a sham, which it
is not, unless indented lines are drawn on it to make it appear like
blocks of ashlar. The rich red of the Roman brick in St. Albans walls
and towers is so delightful, that perhaps we may think Scott did well in
abandoning his idea of replastering them; yet nothing could have so
entirely altered the general appearance of the building as this scraping
away of the plaster. Besides the general view from Holywell Hill, there
are two other distant points of view which should not be missed: one
from Verulam woods, to the south-west; and one from the fields in which
the ruins of Sopwell Nunnery stand. From this latter point it looks best
after sunset on a cloudless evening, when the tower stands up in
majestic grandeur against the saffron sky, and looking at it one can
well imagine how much grander it must have looked when the tower bore
some fitting termination, either the Norman pyramid or the later
octagon, or even possibly the wooden spire of the Hertfordshire spike
order which succeeded it.
#The West Front.# We will begin our examination of the existing exterior
with the west front, and then proceed in order round the building along
the south side, east end and north side, although in reality iron
railings will prevent us from making a complete circuit, and necessitate
our retracing our steps and making a fresh start at the west of the
railings. Still there is no part of the exterior to which we cannot gain
easy access.
Lord Grimthorpe's west front is built of stone; the illustration, p. 23,
will enable the reader to form a good idea of its appearance. It took
the place of one of patchwork character: the porches and lower parts
were of thirteenth-century date; the upper part above the central porch
contained Abbot John of Wheathampstead's large Perpendicular window,
repaired and patched at various times; and brick walls closed the west
end of the aisles. Lord Grimthorpe's idea was to design a front in the
style prevalent in the second half of the thirteenth century. The design
has been much criticized, but its general appearance will not be
distasteful to the ordinary visitor, and is as good as is most
nineteenth-century work. In certain respects it is more pleasing than
the rival design of Mr. John Scott, with its mixture of Perpendicular
features with those of earlier styles, its battlemented octagonal
turrets, two of which were to be surmounted by spikes. There are two
features of the existing front, one not shown, the other easily
overlooked in the photograph, which should be noted. First, the arched
cill of the central window, and second, the manner in which the back of
the gable over the central door has been chamfered off so that it should
not come up close to the glass and make a dark triangle against the
lower part of the window when seen from the inside. The doors are all
new; the side doors had vanished, and the central ones were too short
for the restored doorways. The western porches, which Sir Gilbert Scott
spoke of as some of the most exquisite thirteenth-century work in
existence, were almost entirely rebuilt by Lord Grimthorpe. Fortunately
some drawings were made for Sir Gilbert Scott, one of which, by the
courtesy of Mr. Murray, we have been able to reproduce, p. 11.
#The South Side.# The south clerestory has no less than twenty-three
windows. The ten westernmost, partially restored by Scott, are connected
by an arcading; the next ten, as well as the wall that contains them,
are new--built by Lord Grimthorpe; the parapet, fortunately quite plain,
was rebuilt at the time when the roof was raised; the three easternmost
windows of the clerestory are formed of Roman brick in brick walls much
restored, and are separated by brick buttresses.
The south aisle roof is partly lead (Scott) and partly, at the eastern
end, of red tiles (Lord Grimthorpe). Lord Grimthorpe cut four windows in
the western bays of the aisle, in which no windows had originally
existed, as domestic buildings abutted against the church here. The
three eastern windows of Abbot William of Trumpington's time were
rebuilt in the old style; the five bays to the west of these were
refaced with brick and flint, as the original clunch stone had perished,
owing to exposure to the weather. The arcading of the north walk of the
cloister may still be seen. It will be noticed that this arcading did
not follow the division into bays of the aisle walls above. The cloister
walk acted as a kind of continuous buttress to the south aisle wall, and
owing to its removal this part of the wall was gradually pushed outward.
To strengthen it Lord Grimthorpe built buttresses, naturally following
the division of the upper part of the walls, but thereby cutting across
the arcading of the cloister walk in a most ugly fashion. By building
flying buttresses instead, he might have preserved the whole of the
arcading of the cloister walk unbroken, but he considered that this plan
would have been ugly, and that the buttresses he did build were
constructively better; possibly they may be, but most of us will be of
the opinion that, as far as appearance goes, the plan adopted was the
less satisfactory. The porch over the Abbot's door in the corner is
entirely new. It probably is useful as a support for the wall, but that
is all that can be said in its favour. Lord Grimthorpe thought that this
would be used as an entrance to the church on this side, but it has not
been so used. It is worthy of notice that this church is destitute of
porches, either on the southern or northern side; probably because they
were not needed in a purely monastic church.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH TRANSEPT AS REBUILT.]
#The South Transept.# The south arm of the transept was most ruthlessly
dealt with by Lord Grimthorpe; no doubt it was in an unsafe condition,
but his alterations here have been criticized severely, though not more
severely than they deserve. The south front with the five enormous
lancet windows--the lower parts of them lighting the church, the upper
parts of the three central ones the space between the ceiling and the
outer roof--was entirely rebuilt, together with the corner turrets. The
slype or passage between the transept and the chapter-house, leading
from the cloister to the cemetery of the monks, has been practically
destroyed, some of the arcading having been removed and rebuilt into the
interior face of the new south wall, some rebuilt into the south wall of
the slype; the stones of the west doorway of the slype with modern
additions were used up in making a doorway in the centre of the south
transept wall into the slype, and a new doorway was built at the east
end of the slype, thus forming a way into the transept which seems now
chiefly used as a passage for carrying in coke for the stoves in the
transept.
[Illustration: THE LADY CHAPEL, CHOIR AND TRANSEPT FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.]
The architectural choir, containing the presbytery and the Saint's
Chapel, consists of five bays. The clerestory windows are Decorated ones
of three lights each, the tracery being different in the different
windows. They are set in a brick wall which, in the latter part of the
thirteenth century, had been raised so as to allow of higher windows
being set in it. The tracery is all new, Lord Grimthorpe keeping only
the old outlines and leading lines of the mullions. The ridge of the
roof of this part of the church was raised by Lord Grimthorpe to its
original height, the same as that of the other three roofs that abut
against the tower. As the side walls from which this roof springs are
higher than those of the nave and transept the pitch is lower, and the
window in the gable designed by Lord Grimthorpe is triangular; below
this, in the east wall, is a geometrical window with a small, one-light
window on either side of it; all of these are rebuilt. The south aisle
of the presbytery contains two small, round-headed windows, and further
to the east two three-light, and then one two-light window; beneath two
of these are doors. All this part of the church has been extensively
restored, as has also been the retro-choir or antechapel, as it is
sometimes called. Through this, after the dissolution, a public footway
was cut, which was closed in 1870, and a great deal of reconstruction
was needful. This part of the church has two bays, each bay with a
window on each side, and one facing east on each side of the Lady
Chapel.
#The Lady Chapel# has three bays; the tracery seen on the outside is
new, though it is old inside, for Scott cut the mullions down the middle
so as to retain the statuettes that they bore on the inside. There is a
low vestry built against the south-eastern bay of the Lady Chapel; the
window above this is triangular; the windows of the vestry itself are
shown in the illustration, p. 28, as also is the five-light window in
the east wall of the Lady Chapel. The north side of the Lady Chapel
resembles the southern.
#The North Transept.# The character of the north presbytery aisle and
the north arm of the transept may be seen by examination of the
illustration, p. 30. It will be observed that the north front of this
contains a large circular window measuring twenty-nine feet across the
glass, filled by a number of circular apertures. This is Lord
Grimthorpe's design, upon which much not undeserved ridicule has been
showered. He informs us that this arm of the transept was in a somewhat
better condition than the southern one, but that all the upper part and
the turrets needed rebuilding. In the rebuilt walls of the transept he
used the original material as far as it would go, supplementing it by
some modern bricks made in imitation of the Roman ones.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH-EAST.]
The illustration, p. 30, shows the iron railings which, unless a door in
them be unlocked, prevent further progress westward, and necessitate a
retracing of our steps right round the church till we again reach the
north arm of the transept. In the north front of this may be seen a
Norman door near the north-west corner, through which pilgrims passed
who wished to visit the shrine of the martyr; they entered the precincts
by the Waxhouse gate, buying their candles there, and went down the path
which is now called "the Cloisters," from which the photograph on p. 30
was taken. In the west wall there is an upper row of three round-headed
brick windows once recessed, and a lower one of two twice recessed.
#The North Side.# The north clerestory of the nave has eight
round-headed brick windows at the eastern part, followed by lancets
similar to those on the south side. Flat buttresses of brick are built
against the clerestory wall between the round-headed windows. The aisle
windows, most of them rebuilt, are in Decorated style. A length of
eighty feet of the wall towards the western end of the aisle, which had
been built about 1553, when the Chapel of St. Andrew had been destroyed,
was rebuilt and buttresses built against it to counteract the thrust of
the clerestory, which leans outward. In this wall, as on the opposite
side of the church, Lord Grimthorpe inserted windows; and placed a new
sloping roof over the north aisle, covering the triforium arches which
had been glazed as windows in the fifteenth century; this roof is
covered with dark-coloured tiles. We may notice in the north aisle wall
a brick door in the fourth bay from the east; this was cut by Lord
Grimthorpe and leads into the vestry; also a walled-up door in the sixth
bay, which led from the church into the graveyard, and another in the
sixth bay, which formerly led from the north aisle into the chancel of
St. Andrew's Church; this Lord Grimthorpe converted into a cupboard in
the thickness of the wall. The only other thing noteworthy at this part
of the exterior is a small piece of the north aisle wall of St. Andrew's
Church near the footpath.
#The Tower.# There yet remains the magnificent tower. It is 144 feet
high and is not quite square in plan, measuring 47 feet from east to
west, and two feet less from north to south. The walls are about seven
feet thick; in the thickness, however, passages are cut. It has three
stages above the ridges of the roof. The lower stage has plain windows
in each face, lighting the church below; the next stage, or ringing
room, has two pairs of double windows; and the upper or belfry stage,
two double windows of large size, furnished with louvre boards. The
parapet is battlemented, and of course of later work than the tower
itself. The tower is flanked by pilaster buttresses, which merge into
cylindrical turrets in the upper story. For simple dignity the tower
stands unrivalled in this country. It must have been splendidly built to
have stood as it has done so many centuries without accident. Winchester
tower fell not long after its building, Peterborough tower has been
rebuilt in modern days; but Paul of Caen did not scamp his work as the
monks of Peterborough did, and no evil-living king was buried below the
tower, as was the case at Winchester, thus, according to the beliefs of
the time, leading to its downfall. Tewkesbury tower alone can vie with
that of St. Albans, and the seventeenth-century pinnacles on that tower
spoil the general effect, so that the foremost place among central
Norman towers as we see them to-day may safely be claimed for that at
St. Albans. Few more beautiful architectural objects can be seen than
this tower of Roman brick, especially when the warmth of its colour is
accentuated by the ruddy flush thrown over it by the rays of a setting
sun.
The view from the tower when the air is clear is magnificent, but
unfortunately the privilege of ascending the tower once accorded to
visitors has, on account of unseemly behaviour, been necessarily
withdrawn, and only by a special relaxation of this rule, through the
kindness of the Dean, was the writer enabled to inspect the upper parts
of the church.
[Illustration: THREE OLD PAVEMENT TILES.]
[Illustration: THE NAVE FROM THE WEST END.]