THE EXTERIOR.
As a design, the west front offers four important parts for
observation; these are the two towers, the west wall of the nave
proper, with the gable and the windows which compose it, and then the
porch.
The #Towers# are now similar. The upper stage of that on the north
is an imitation, as far as possible, of the same section of the other
tower which was built in the thirteenth century. In its third stage
some differences are introduced. The masonry of the new work is
executed so as to carry on the courses of the old stonework that
attach it to the rest of the front. The new work has followed the
custom of the older and better traditions of the stonemasons, in that
it has been left strictly as it was finished by the tool upon the
"banker." The natural and simple texture imparted by the action of
chiselling leaves a character upon the stonework similar to that of
the earlier work.
The upper portion of the new north-west tower [29] being copied from
that part of the old one to the south, it will be enough to describe
the original. But first it is necessary to notice the lower stage of
the southern tower. The buttressing on the south angle is of a later
date than the rest of this section of the tower. It has a low
weathered base. The central part of it has its projection at the base
reduced when it reaches its summit by means of three steep sloping
weatherings. There are also openings in the buttress for the staircase
windows. The two lower windows of the west front in this tower are not
placed in the same vertical line. This peculiarity has been followed
in the new tower. The upper of these two windows is pointed, and has
no label-mould. But the angle shafts that carry the arch have carved
capitals and square-moulded abaci. Above the head of the pointed
window the tower changes in character. The buttresses run up to the
top as broad, flat surfaces, except that the northern one is slightly
weathered twice. The coupled windows are more deeply recessed, having
three orders of moulded arch-stones instead of the two, as in the
lower window of a similar date; and the arch is carried by three
shafts attached as parts of the jamb-stones. The windows have
label-moulds over them, and the abaci of the capitals are carried
across the buttresses on either side as a string-course. By this means
the lines of the composition are continued horizontally,
notwithstanding the interruption by the openings in the walling. These
are now glazed as windows; but they were originally open, as some
bells once hung in the tower at this level.
[29] By the late J.L. Pearson, R.A., and completed by his son.
[Illustration: THE NORTH-EAST ANGLE OF THE SOUTH-WEST TOWER. _S.B.
Bolas & Co., photo_.]
The west end of the nave has six windows grouped in it above the
porch. The two upper ones are small and close up under the gable
coping. This latter is simply chamfered and capped with a modern
cross. The windows are arched in two orders. The inner order has a
plain, straight chamfered moulding; and the outer, a hollow chamfered
one. The label-mould and the capitals of the attached shafts in the
jambs are a little later in design than the windows themselves. A
moulded string-course separates the point of the large west window
from those above it; and from the level of this string-course up to
the coping of the gable the whole surface of the wall is covered with
a diagonal pattern of incised diapers.
The West Window is entirely modern, but copied from fourteenth-century
examples with some success. It has five divisions between the jambs
and mullions. The central one is larger than those on either side. The
upper part is filled with geometrical tracery.
Below the west window are three other windows grouped together. They
are at the triforium level, where they were probably inserted before
the middle of the thirteenth century; but they have been restored at
various times since then.
The #West Porch# is a comparatively simple structure. It rises from
the ground with a deep weathered base. At the top of the walls is a
plain weathered coping, which overhangs about one inch. The simple,
but extremely well designed, buttresses at the north and south angles
add much interest to it as a composition artistically and as a study
in structure. The small, straight buttresses on the west are only
weathered once, and this at the top; but those on the north and south
sides are different. There is a broad central buttress weathered twice
from the base to its top, and in the angle on either side of it are
what appear to be two lower, smaller buttresses, with one weathering
slope. The probability is that there was only a small buttress here at
first, and that the larger one on either side was added by being
built over the shallower, broader, and shorter one.
[Illustration: WALL-ARCADE IN THE WEST PORCH. _S.B. Bolas & Co.,
photo_.]
These buttresses have been placed here in order to counteract the
thrust of the large, deeply-set covering arch over the entrance to the
porch. This arch is of interest, as it has but a slight label; and
then the outside angle of the soffit only is moulded, the rest being
recessed both at the jambs and in the arch for about two feet, with no
mouldings at all. Then comes a delicately moulded arch in two orders,
immediately beneath which are the coupled arches which give entrance
to the interior, vaulted apartment. These two arches, the central and
side shafts on which they rest, as well as the tympanum between them,
are restorations.
The vault over the interior of the porch is carried on moulded
diagonal ribs. On the north, south, and west are wall ribs as well, to
carry the chalk filling between them. The insertion of two later
monuments, now much dilapidated, involved the destruction of much of
the beautiful wall arcades. These were of three complete divisions on
each wall, and have cusped heads. The upper part, below the finishing
horizontal string-course, is composed of two full and two half
quatrefoils. The work in each arcade is recessed quite seven inches
from the face of the general walling above; and the multiplied detail
in the mouldings is finely studied. Opposite the entrance is the west
doorway into the nave. The deep arch over this is seriously cracked in
several places, though it has already been much restored. It has an
outer label, which indicates that when it was built in there was then
no porch to protect it. The three orders, or main groups, of mouldings
do not run down on to the capitals, but finish by dying on to a plain
piece of stonework of circular form set immediately upon the capitals.
The Purbeck marble capitals themselves are rather large and heavily
moulded, and the shafts under them are sandstone restorations of
recent date. The west door and the woodwork about it is a poor
specimen of modern ingenuity.
The #South Side# of the church introduces many interesting
varieties of work. These may well be followed in the course of this
description from the west to the east end.
The lowest part of the south-west tower presents a treatment different
from that on the west side. There is here a doorway, and an
additional window. Both are round-arched. The doorway is one of the
most notable pieces of beautiful design on all the exterior of the
building. It is treated solely with variations of the well-known
chevron ornament. The cut work upon it is in no case at all deep, but
the total effect is truly delightful. There is none of the dead,
formal regularity invariable in modern attempts to imitate this type
of work. The voussoirs of the arch are not all of equal size in each
order, and on one member the chevrons are reversed on opposite sides
of the centre stone except for one accidental intermission. The
abacus, nearly six inches deep, has a flat upper part on which a
continuous diaper of Greek crosses has been cut. The lower part is a
plain, hollowed chamfer moulding. Though the small columns in the
jambs are new, and also parts of the inner reveal of the jamb, yet the
old carved capitals are still in position and also the bases. These
capitals bear distinct traces of Byzantine feeling in the design of
them. Above the doorway is a billet-moulded string-course, which stops
against the circular shafts by the buttresses, and forms the sill of
the window. The design of this opening is like that of the one over it
in the next stage, which is similar to that in the same position on
the west face of the tower. But the abaci of its capitals run from the
jambs across to the buttresses, as is the case with those of the
doorway. The billet-moulded sill evidently passed round the tower
completely, before the addition of the angle buttresses, since it
appears again on the north buttress of the west front of the same
tower; and the obvious inference is that there was once a window also
on the west in this same stage at the same level. The window
immediately below the upper division of the tower is of the same date
and character exactly as the one on the west in the like place; and it
should be noticed that the sills of the upper windows run on as
string-courses, which are continued round the circular angle-shafts of
the buttresses.
Passing eastward from the tower, the external #Roof# of the nave
becomes visible. The irregularly waved line of the ridge where the
lead rolls meet, as it were, against the sky, is a pretty indication
of the presence of the aged timbers underneath that support it above
the walls.
The oldest part of the building to be seen from this point is the
strip of walling at the clerestory level. The twelfth-century
round-arched windows are there almost complete. In detail they are
like those of the tower. Two of them, those in the fourth and fifth
bays from the tower, have had later work inserted in the same
openings.
The crest of the wall between the west and the central tower was
renewed in the fourteenth century. It consists of a parapet with a
weathered coping for the top course of stonework, so that the water
might not rest upon it and percolate through the walls. Three courses
below this is a simply moulded string-course, and immediately beneath
is the cusped arcade supported on the course of detached moulded and
shaped corbels. For five feet below the bottom of the corbels the
newer part of the wall is continued. It will be interesting later to
notice the way in which the parapet on the north side of the nave has
been dealt with. The reason for the presence of so much new walling at
this level is no doubt to be found in the fact that the roof timbers
at the time of the second fire were carried down over the walls.
The water from the gutter behind the parapet is carried out on to the
backs of the flying-buttresses by means of holes cut through the
stonework. Into these pipes are passed which convey the water through
to the open gutter channels of the buttresses. The backs of the raking
buttresses, though they are sharply weathered to throw the water from
them quickly, are also covered with lead as a further protection.
These buttresses have carried the thrust of the vaults down-wards with
safety for about six hundred years. But the presence of two distinct
arches under each of them indicates that they have been altered a
little since first they were put up. This was done when it became
necessary to carry their thrust farther out because of the new chapels
that were added long after the vaults were built over the nave. At the
foot of each raking slope is a horizontal piece which runs out until
it comes in contact with the octagon pinnacles of the vertical
exterior buttresses. It should be noted that where the
flying-buttresses meet the vertical wall of the clerestory there is in
some cases a portion of the flat buttressing of the twelfth century
visible.
Between the buttresses of the chapels are four two-light windows, The
outer arch of each of these windows is a beautiful example of late
thirteenth-century moulded detail. The main line of the arch curve is
excellent, and the whole opening between the head, jambs, and sill is
beautifully proportioned. Some fifteenth century tracery remained in
these windows until it was replaced by the present modern work. The
outer arch is in two orders, which are carried by slight attached
shafts, some of which are renewals. The capitals to these are carved,
and have square abaci, rounded at the angle, as they pass over the
capitals. These abaci, which are finely moulded, are not more than
about two and a half inches in depth. The bases of the jamb-shafts are
characteristic of the period during which this work was done. There
are two small rounded mouldings, and one larger one. These rest on the
square, lower part, of the base. Immediately below the sill is a
string-course; and this, as well as the projecting base to the whole
wall, is continued from the side of the tower buttress eastward. Each
is returned round the four buttresses till it stops against the outer
wall of the south walk of the cloisters. The vertical buttresses here
were originally completed with a weathering at a point about half-way
up their present height; and upon this old weathering the upper and
later part of the buttress has been added. This was probably done
during the fourteenth century, about the time that the adjoining
parapet of the aisles, the parapet of the nave, and the re-working of
the upper part of the flying-buttresses was undertaken. This change in
the design involved the removal of the range of pointed gables, by
which the roof over each bay of the aisle was completed southward.
Traces of the earlier gable copings are still bedded in their original
places in the walling. Upon three of these buttresses are remains of
the old gargoyles by which the water from the roofs was carried off.
The use of these is now superseded by the cheap and mean-looking
rain-water heads and pipes.
Close by the parapet of the aisle the square angles of each buttress
are cut off so as to form a base for the octagonal pinnacle above.
These, when in their complete state, were undoubtedly very beautiful;
for besides what can be now seen, it is known that they were once
completed each with a spirelet. Now they have the substitutes
suggested by parsimony to cover their incompleteness. As they are, in
their ruined condition, it may be seen that they were not all finished
in identically the same way. The three sides on the north of the
octagon of each one are left plain and flat. The other five sides are
treated as narrow, recessed panels, formed by the six groups of small
shafts at either angle. Every group has its capital and moulded base.
The capitals in some cases are carved, in others moulded only. Above
each capital is a small carved boss. This, doubtless, was the stop to
some member on the angles of the spirelets. Springing from the
capitals are moulded and cusped arches, which form on either side the
heads of the panelled divisions. The horizontal part of the weathering
of the flying-buttresses is stopped behind the octagons of the
pinnacles.
The parapet has a plain weathered coping, close under which is a
string-course which helps to throw the water clear from the top of the
wall; and two coupes below this one is another moulded string. Each is
about six inches in depth. If is not possible to state more concerning
these parts in detail, since they have been much repaired at various
times.
The stove-pipes which run up the north and south sides of the nave as
smoke-flues for the heating-apparatus do not add to the beauty of the
exterior.
In the fifth bay, eastward from the south-west tower, is the #South
Porch#, which opens directly into the west walk of the cloister.
Early in the nineteenth century it was in a ruinous condition; but
restoration has again given it stability, if not all its old beauty.
The idea of the design, as it is seen from the cloister, is identical
with that of the exterior of the west porch. But in the detail of its
mouldings and other features it is different entirely. The restored
abaci of the capitals, like the originals, are some of them square,
others irregular octagons. The interior is vaulted, and has diagonal
and wall ribs. On the west and east sides are stone benches. But the
west side has in addition a small arcade of four arches forming
recessed sedilia. The mouldings to the arches of this small arcade are
of about the same date as those in the two outer orders of the
enclosing arch on the south front of this porch. The two smaller
arches under it appear to be later work, if we judge from their
present character. But the arch-mould of the #Doorway# within the
porch is work of approximately the same date as the outer moulded
member of the enclosing arch on the west front of the west porch. The
enclosing arch of the south porch is later work than these. But the
two inner moulded orders of the enclosing arch of the west porch are
even later still in character.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH DOORWAY IN THE WEST WALK OF THE CLOISTER.
_S.B. Bolas & Co., photo_.]
The east side of this south porch forms the west wall of the present
choir singing school--the old sacristy. But this room projects farther
southward than the porch. The limit of its projection is indicated by
a portion of a buttress in the cloister. Between this buttress and the
porch are two small windows--one of them is now blocked up. The upper
one is the same in design as those others on the south side of the
same apartment. These we shall consider presently. Above the central
pier at the entrance to this porch is a miserable figure in stone,
intended to represent a saint.
[Illustration: THE WEST WALK OF THE CLOISTER FROM THE SOUTH-EAST.
_S.B. Bolas & Co., photo_.]
The #Cloister#, which was added in the fifteenth century, is of a
peculiarly irregular shape, and encloses the south transept within the
paradise. It has been much restored at different times. The present
roof is of tiles, and is carried on common rafters. Each has a
cross-tie, and the struts are shaped so as to give a pointed, arched
form to each one. The old fifteenth-century wooden cornice still
remains in some sections. The walling was once all plastered. The
tracery is divided into four compartments by mullions, and each head
is filled with cusped work.
Round the cloister are placed the old houses of the Treasurer, the
Royal Chaplains, and Wiccamical Prebendaries. Above the door leading
to the house of the Royal Chaplains is an interesting monument of the
Tudor period. It is a panel divided into two compartments by a moulded
stone framework.
Leading out of the south walk is a doorway, through which the deanery
may be seen beyond the end of a long walled passage known as S.
Richard's Walk. Looking back northwards, there is a fine view of the
spire and transept from the end of this walk.
The chamber over the present singing school between the south arm of
the transept and the west walk of the cloister shows the effect
produced by some changes made during the fifteenth century. The
masonry was more carefully finished than that of the adjoining
transept--a specimen of twelfth-century work. The joints in the later
work are thinner, and the average size of the stones is in this case
smaller.
On the south side of the wall of this chamber are two buttresses.
Close under the shallow moulded coping at the top of the wall are two
fifteenth-century windows. They are not placed centrally over the
others below. In design they are each divided into three lights by
mullions. On the east side of the middle buttress is an old rain-water
head of (eighteenth-century?) leadwork. Part of the lead piping still
remains, having the old ears to fasten it to the walls. The west side
of this chamber has one buttress on the south angle and a window in
the centre of the wall. Above it is the low slope of a gable. The
window is similar to those on the south side, but the head is a
pointed and four-centred arch. The mullions have been restored. Below
the part just described is the earlier work of the thirteenth
century. It rises as far up as to the string-course formed by the
continuation of the abaci of the capitals in the two small
single-light windows. These narrow and sharp-pointed windows are
peculiar. The arch-moulds are different from the other work of the
same date in the church. There is no sign of tracery in their design,
and the jambs have a simple attached shaft in the outer reveal. The
bases to these shafts are earlier than those of the shafts to the
south aisle chapel windows, and the edge of the inner member of the
window arch is merely cut off with a straight chamber. There is one
window, the same as these, hidden in the west walk of the cloister.
Beneath the windows just described there are two small single-light
openings in each portion of walling on either side of the central
buttress. These six windows serve to light the vaulted (sacristy)
choir school within.
[Illustration: THE EAST WALK OF THE CLOISTER. _S.B. Bolas & Co.,
photo_.]
It has been supposed by some that a chapter-house once existed within
the paradise close by the west angle of the transept. The south end of
the transept rises on the north side of the cloister garth. At the
south-west angle a great part of the twelfth-century masonry in the
broad flat buttresses remains. The south-east angle and buttresses are
quite different. They are perhaps part of the work done during the
thirteenth century, though it is possible that they were introduced
when Langton inserted the large south window of the transept. This
window has been very much restored since the seventeenth century, when
it was almost knocked in pieces. Wooden props served instead of
mullions for many years to hold up the tracery above. The repair that
has been effected retains the old design. Above each angle of the
transept is a turret, octagonal in form. Neither of them is complete.
They were only required in the fifteenth century as a means of access
to the roofs at the parapet level from the staircases in the angle
buttresses. The gable of the transept rises above the parapet just
described, but it is not in the same vertical plane as the face of the
wall below. The top of this gable was for many years in a very wrecked
condition. The design of the tracery in the rose window is in two
orders, based upon equilateral triangles filled in with cusps.
Close to the ground on the south-west corner buttress are two
string-courses. The lower of these is a billet-moulded course cut,
like those to be seen on the south-west tower. Its presence here, and
at this level, shows that this was the original level of the sills of
all the old Norman windows on the outside walls until about the close
of the twelfth century.
On the east side of this part of the transept, at the clerestory
level, are two round-headed windows. Both originally were all of
twelfth-century workmanship. But now the southern one has abaci,
capitals, angle-shafts, and base, which are thirteenth-century work,
and the early label-mould has been changed. The other window shows
partly what was once probably the character of both of them. But the
greater part of this window was restored when the central tower and
spire were rebuilt after 1861. Between the windows is a buttress that
was introduced when the vault was added. The south-east angle on this
side retains part of the twelfth-century flat buttressing. There are
on this wall and the turret different types of masonry, which
represent five distinct periods of building, from the twelfth to the
nineteenth century. But the junction between the work of two of these
periods, being a weak part, shows by the crack down the wall from the
parapet that some movement has taken place here.
Projecting eastwards from the transept is the square chapel (now a
vestry), which took the place of the early apsidal one. Neither of its
three windows has any tracery. The window on the south side is
pointed. The arch-mould is the same as that to the round-headed window
on the east; but there is a label-mould over this south one and not on
the other. The abaci are new, and the angle-shafts and bases as well,
but the capitals are old, though decayed. The parapet on the south is
of the same character and date as that over the wall of the choir, but
earlier than that above the south window of the transept, which is of
the same date as that on the south wall of the nave.
The roof of this chapel appears, from the raking channel on the
transept wall, to have once been higher, with a sharper pitch. The
finish to the present gable point has disappeared. On the east wall
and on the south-west buttress of the transept there are two
interesting old lead rain-water heads. The east wall of the chapel
runs on northwards till it becomes a part of the buttress of the
choir. The wall between the north buttress of the chapel and the
buttress of the choir aisle close by is pierced with two small cusped
windows of fifteenth-century date. Below these is a larger and sharply
pointed arched head. It has no mouldings. But the square-headed small
light under it has splayed jambs. This opening was probably once a
round-headed twelfth-century window, as the old abacus is still in
position.
The #South Side of the Choir# is externally divided into five bays.
There are five flying-buttresses to carry down the vault thrusts, with
a pinnacle above the buttress at the south-east angle. The first,
second, and third bays from the east side of the transept have still
the round-arched windows of the twelfth century set in the walling of
the same date. But it should be noted that part of the window in the
first bay was rebuilt after 1861. The fourth and fifth bays have
pointed windows, carved capitals, and angle-shafts. These, though now
entirely renewed, were built when the whole of this part of the choir
was added. Part of the walling for a few feet below the parapet was
renewed at the same time. The flying-buttresses are thirteenth-century
additions of the same date as the vaults within; and those three
nearest the transept abut on parts of the twelfth-century flat
buttresses. The flat projection was continued up to the parapet at a
later date, probably when the parapet itself was built on. But the
fourth buttress also abuts upon a slightly projecting flat strip of
buttressing. In this case, however, but not in the others, the flat
strip and the flying-buttress are of the same width and built as one
piece of structure. The third and fourth flying-buttresses have a
secondary, and apparently later, arch of fine grained white stone
beneath their larger arches.
The copings on the backs of these buttresses are not weathered like
those of the nave, and, except the one next the transept, each is
covered with lead. There are no pinnacles to them above the aisle
wall. The fourteenth-century builders had not touched them, as they
did those south of the nave. There are, too, no gutters along their
backs. It is curious that this method of carrying the water away from
the upper roofs over the lower ones should not have been adopted when
the parapets were put up.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR AND CENTRAL TOWER FROM THE SOUTH-EAST. _S.B.
Bolas & Co., photo_.]
The outer wall of the choir aisle is one of the most interesting
portions of the building, from an archaeological as well as an
architectural standpoint. It shows three of the arched heads of small
twelfth-century windows that used to light the earlier triforium
gallery. One of these has now a fifteenth-century insertion beneath
it. This is in the second bay from the transept. It is a small window
with a cusped head and a square label-mould above it. In the same area
of walling there are shown the levels of the cut string-course that
ran along under the sills of the twelfth-century aisle windows. It is
the same string and at the same level as it appears upon the
south-west angle of the transept and the south-west tower of the west
front. It shows, too, in the second bay, the level of the old abaci
which ran across from each capital in the window jambs and stopped
against the sides of the buttresses. There is also the continuous
chamfer course that ran along the walls above the heads of these aisle
windows. In proof of these things there is even now one of these same
old windows in almost its original state within the little chamber
known as the priest-vicars' vestry. This window is in the bay of aisle
walling immediately against the transept wall. The string-courses of
the old windows were continued round the later buttresses. In the
fourth bay, above the point of the window arch, the curve of the
original apse of the ambulatory is just traceable; but beyond this
point eastwards the twelfth-century walling has disappeared until we
meet it again in the lady-chapel. There is a small buttress in the
fourth bay marking the junction between the two periods of masonry. In
the second and third bays part of the twelfth-century top to the aisle
walls remains. The roof may have had eaves originally, but now there
is a parapet of about the same date as the present buttresses; and the
projection of this parapet is carried upon the corbels that were
carved and built in before the second fire occurred. The space between
each corbel is bridged over by small single stones cut out to the
shape of a semicircular arch.
The windows in the second, third, and fourth bays differ in size and
shape from each other; that in the second bay has a pointed arch and
no tracery, square abaci and the remains of carved capitals. The angle
shafts and bases are gone. They were all inserted at about the same
time; but that in the third bay has had some poor modern tracery
without cusps added to it, and that in the fourth bay is a more
recent, insertion than the one next to it. In the third and fourth
bays just above the low chamfered base of the wall are three
semicircular markings cut on the wall, but there is nothing to explain
their existence. In the fourth bay close beneath the sill of the
window is a stone built into the wall, upon which a dedication cross
is cut. At the fifth bay the east walk of the cloisters joins the wall
of the aisle; its roof partly hides a window, above which is a square
panel of the fifteenth century. This panel indicates the position of a
window, for the jambs and mullions of its tracery may be seen within
the church. They are rebated for shutters, the old hooks for which
also remain. The south-east angle turret of the presbytery has lately
been rebuilt; so also has that on the north-east angle. They are each
of them octagonal in form, but differ in detail, in imitation of those
they replace.
The large rose window in the gable of the #East End# is of about
the same date as the vaulting over the south transept, since they
possess kindred details. In design it is a simple circle, with seven
others within it of equal diameter. Portions of the coping of an
earlier and lower pointed gable are bedded in the wall. Under the
string beneath the rose window are three windows grouped as a triplet,
with no label moulding. The centre light is higher than the others.
Though each has been much repaired, the early thirteenth-century
detail has been retained. The abaci of the capitals are square. The
windows have no tracery, and are probably quite fifty years earlier in
date than the large rose above them.
The exterior of the small chapel to the south has a square weathered
angle buttress. On its south side is a window of the same date as the
rest of the chapel, and like the triplet in the gable of the
presbytery in character and date. Its east end has been altered since
the chapel was finished. First a small rose window, recently renewed,
of the same date and type as that in the presbytery gable, was
inserted under the earlier narrow window close to the gable point;
then the original east window was removed, and a larger one was put
in, having three lights and a traceried head with cusped work of late
fourteenth-or early fifteenth-century work. The sill of the old window
was lowered to give more length. Most of the window now to be seen is
the result of recent restoration. Parts of the old string-courses
remain in the walling.
The south side of the #Lady-Chapel# beyond the chapel just
described has four bays. In each of these is a large three-light
window. The western and smallest one was probably first inserted. Then
the two eastern ones were put in when the two east bays were added to
the older lady-chapel. The other window appears the latest of the
four; or else may it not be that before deciding to lengthen the
lady-chapel, the builders first began only with the idea of inserting
some new windows in the older walls? But before this scheme had been
executed they concluded that they would add bodily to the chapel; and
in order to allow the chapel to continue in use while this was being
done, they built the extension first outside, then built up the
connection with the original walls, and inserted their latest window.
Two of the buttresses on this wall are flat. In this they are like
those of the twelfth century; but their upper parts were rebuilt when
the parapet was made. The others are later, and have more projection.
On the north and south of the lady-chapel the wall is finished by a
parapet. It is the same in detail and design as that on the south wall
of the presbytery. So it is probable that Bishop Gilbert de S.
Leophardo, when he lengthened the lady-chapel, caused other work to be
done at the same time.
[Illustration: WINDOWS OF THE LADY-CHAPEL, SOUTH SIDE. _S.B. Bolas &
Co., photo_.]
The lady-chapel has been much restored in many ways, but the old
parapet remains in part on the north side. The tracery of the windows
is interesting, as it shows early examples of cusped forms. The east
end of the lady-chapel has a five-light window, which has been much
repaired. It has been in a measure imitated from the others in the
chapel.
The description of the south side of the chapel applies generally to
the north side. But the windows in two cases have been much more
restored. The chapel north of the lady-chapel has an angle turret like
that on the south. Its east and north windows are fifteenth-century
insertions. And it has a little rose window in the gable not yet
restored, though soon, by decay, it will have disappeared. The smaller
window above it is blocked up. On its north side there is neither a
gutter nor a parapet; but perhaps this is better than the foolish
cornice, with rosettes in it, which has been placed on the wall of the
south chapel to carry a gutter.
The details of the north wall of the presbytery are similar to those
described on the south. But there are no sub-arches to any of the
flying buttresses, and the slopes of each are protected by lead
coverings. And in the exterior of the north aisle the same elements of
structure and design may be discovered, even to the presence of
twelfth-century remains, the curve of the old encircling apse, and the
position of the first sills, abaci, and string-courses. But it should
be noticed that in the eastern bay of this aisle externally, where on
the south there is a fifteenth-century solid square panel, on the
north there is a small round-headed window. But this little window is
of no earlier date than the walls in which it is set. The second and
third windows from the east buttress of the presbytery aisle are
insertions of fifteenth-century type; but they have been so much
renewed and restored that only in the third one does there appear to
be any portion of the original tracery remaining. On the north side of
the choir and presbytery are four very fine old lead rain-water heads
and square lead pipes.
The east end of the present #Library# has in it five windows. Two
of the upper ones are built up, the central and higher one only being
glazed. In detail they are all of the same date as the walls they are
in. None has any tracery, and by this they show that this piece of
work was done at the same time as the chapel--now a vestry--on the
east side of the south end of the transept. The gable is a low slope
like the present roof, but the slope of the old gable and roof may be
seen upon the east wall of the transept. There is one buttress only on
the east side of the library. The north side is divided into two parts
in its length by a buttress. The parapet has a corbel course similar
to that on the two eastern bays of the presbytery aisle. The two small
pointed windows below it are built up, as now the apartment they once
lighted is a lumber-room, where the remnants of the old reredos are
stored. The larger windows below are of the same date, nearly, as
those two fifteenth-century ones in the north wall of the presbytery
aisle. The east one has three and the west four lights, with cusped
tracery in the heads.
The east wall of the north arm of the #Transept# has a buttress, as
is the case with the south arm. But early thirteenth-century pointed
windows take the place of the round-headed ones. There are, however,
three string-courses on this wall of the north arm which do not appear
on the south. One is the old twelfth-century string which evidently
once ran along above the old round-headed windows. The next is a
continuation of the abaci of the capitals. The other passes under the
sills of the windows. A comparison of this wall with that
corresponding to it in the south of the transept shows that for some
reason the windows here were totally changed and the others only
partially. This may suggest that at the time of the fire this part was
more damaged than the other. The parapet on this wall is unlike that
at the top of the presbytery and choir walls. It has no corbelling and
no arched and cusped work; it is merely a plain piece of walling,
slightly overhung with a weathered coping at the top and a moulded
string beneath.
The general features in the design of the north end of this transept
are similar to those of the south. The gable sets back from the face
of the lower wall as before, and in it is a rose window, also based on
the hexagon principle in design. It is later in character than either
of the other large rose windows in the south of the transept and the
east of the presbytery. Like the others, it has been much repaired.
The two irregular octagon turrets on each angle are of the same date
as those on the south, and, like them, have weathered and battlemented
parapets to the top of their side walls. The parapet of the north wall
between them is of the same design, detail, and date as that on the
north and south walls of the clerestory to the nave.
On the north-east angle are two buttresses; and on the north-west
angle there is a group of buttresses of a later type. On the west
there remains the old twelfth-century flat buttress, like those on the
south-west angle of the transept. Westward of this, and standing clear
of the wall, is a fine fourteenth-century flying-buttress. Projecting
northwards, but attached to the north-west angle, is a vertical
buttress of the same date as the flying one close to it.
On the west side, this part of the transept almost repeats what is to
be observed on the east; but the parapet here is the same as that on
the north end, and near the ground is one of the twelfth-century
windows. The arch-mould of its rounded head is the same in detail as
those in the priest-vicars' vestry and in the chamber above the
present library. It seems to be an example of that later work of the
twelfth century of which other specimens no doubt remained in the
walls of the lady-chapel before Bishop Gilbert transformed it into its
present state. Close to this window, and rising up just above the sill
of the clerestory windows, is a narrow, flat buttress, which is
probably of the same date as the window. Its upper half has an
attached shaft on each angle, with moulded bases and carved capitals
of the same period; but the weathering on its top appears to have been
changed in the thirteenth century.
Close by is the only part now remaining of the twelfth-century outer
wall of the nave aisle. The original corbel course of the parapet
remains, but not the upper part of the parapet. And it may be seen
here that the small windows that lighted the triforium gallery had
round arched heads in two orders, with a string-course at their sill.
Below this string is a thirteenth-century pointed window, with a
billet-moulded label cut in a twelfth-century manner of design.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL FROM THE NORTH-EAST. _Photochrom Co.,
Ltd., photo_.]
The north side of the nave retains the seven twelfth-century
clerestory windows, the one next to the transept having been rebuilt
after the fall of the central tower and spire in 1861. There are no
remains of later insertions, as on the south side. The parapet is
later in design than those to the choir and lady-chapel; but it is of
the same date as that on the south wall of the nave. In the five
eastern bays it is of two tiers. The upper projects beyond the lower,
and so widens the span between the north and south clerestory walls.
It has been suggested that this was done in order to straighten the
north wall, which in the twelfth century had been built so that it
bent inwards towards the south.
The weathered and channelled backs of five of the buttresses are the
same date as those south of the nave; but the easternmost one has a
flat raking back like those to the north and south of the choir and
presbytery. The four western buttresses had pinnacles with
spirelets--now destroyed. The western one was square, the other three
octagonal. All these are earlier in date than the fifth one from the
west, this last one being probably the same in date, as it is in
detail, as those on the south side. The sixth one finishes plainly
with a square top. It may once have had a pinnacle, but none now
remains.
The parapet to the aisle chapels in the four western bays is plain,
with a weathered coping and string-course in which is some carved work
of late fourteenth-century date. The gables between the buttresses are
gone, as is the case on the south side; but traces of their old
copings remain. The four large three-light windows are the same in
design and detail, and were no doubt executed when the chapels
themselves were built. They have traceried heads with early types of
cusping of about the same date as, or a little later than, the rose
window in the east gable; but they are certainly thirty or forty years
earlier than those of the lady-chapel. The north window of the chapel
in the fifth bay is a modern insertion of the same character as in the
south aisle chapels of the nave. It probably, like them, contained a
fifteenth-century window, which was removed to satisfy the taste which
thought the present substitute the better thing. The detail of the two
orders of its outer arch is earlier than that of the windows west of
it. Above the point of this window is a small circular one, with a
cusped treatment of perhaps the same date as the ones in the east end
of the chapels at the end of the aisles of the presbytery.
The #North Porch# has a pointed outer arch in two orders. The
abaci to the capitals are square; but now there are no shafts or bases
in the jambs. The sub-arches appear to be about the same date as the
transept vaulting, as they have the dogtooth ornament in their
mouldings. On the west face of the buttress, close by, is a double
niche in very bad repair; but as a specimen of work it is well worth
studying. The parvise chamber above this porch is not lighted except
by the small cuttings in the form of a cross which pierce the wall.
The new north-west tower, or its north front, has imitations of
twelfth-century work throughout, except in the case of the coupled
openings in the top stage, which are like the thirteenth-century work
at the same level in the south-west tower. The lower part of the
north-east buttress incorporates the remains of the original
twelfth-century flat buttressing.
The #Central Tower# and #Spire#, although they were rebuilt
again after the disaster in 1861, are as nearly as possible an exact
reproduction of the originals.
The tower rises out of the substructure where the roofs of the nave
and transept intersect. It is not square in plan, but has an axis from
east to west, longer than that from north to south. Below the
string-course, under the weathered sills of the arcaded openings in
the belfry stage, are, on the north, south, and west, small wall
arcades. At each angle there is a turret. Three of these are
octagonal, but that at the south-west is circular till it reaches the
string course below the parapet; and excepting those on the north-west
and south-west they are used as staircases. Each of the four sides is
pierced by two groups of coupled openings under superior arches, the
several moulded members of which rise in four receding orders from the
square abaci of the capitals of the angle shafts. The space between
the pointed heads of the sub-arches on the east and west faces is
pierced by quatrefoils; those on the west are different in design from
those on the east.
The parapet of the tower has features in its design which indicate
that the original one W been added to the earlier tower during the
fifteenth century. The octagonal terminations to the four turrets were
of the same character and date as the parapet.
[Illustration: _Photochrom Co., Ltd., photo._ THE DETACHED
BELL-TOWER.]
The spire rises out of the supporting walls of the tower within the
parapet. It is a regular octagon in shape. Four octagonal pinnacles
are placed at its base next to each of the turrets of the tower; and
between these, on the other four faces of the spire, are tall stone
dormers, with carved crockets and finials on the copings of the
high-pitched gables. Above this group the spire is divided into three
sections by two bands of diaper-work cut out of the stone surfaces as
cusped quatrefoils; and from the base of the spire to its capstone
there is a projecting rib on each angle between the several faces of
the octagon.
The #Bell Tower#, which stands alone to the north of the cathedral,
is now the only one of its kind in England; and it is curious that in
two cases where these towers were found, as at Salisbury and at
Norwich, spires had been added to the central towers. The cathedral
bells have been hung in this tower since the fifteenth century. The
structure itself, with its massive walls, is square in plan at the
base, but at the top story it becomes an octagon, and the buttresses
on each angle terminate as pinnacles between the angles of the square
and four sides of the octagon.
[Illustration: THE NAVE, LOOKING WEST. _Photochrom Co., Ltd., photo.]