Bristol is connected with London by the Old Bath Road. What memories
that name arouses of beaux and belles of stage-coach days, gaily
chatting to while away the fifteen-hour trip from London to Bath, or
furtively glancing out to see if bold Dick Turpin, or some gentleman of
his profession, be not lurking in the shadows of the trees, intent on
relieving the tired horses by lightening the passengers' luggage. This
stage-coach period is of peculiar interest to visitors from across the
seas, because it takes one back to old Colony days, and the War of the
Revolution. In England the improved facilities of travel provided by the
stage coach had much to do with advancing parliamentary government and
doing away with the system of "rotten borough" representation in
Parliament. Bustling and hearty days were those of the four Georges,
which produced a Prime Minister like William Pitt. In this progressive
era of railroad construction and stock manipulation, it is interesting
to read how Richard Palmer besought the Government to establish a
regular mail-coach service on the Bath Road, alleging the great profits
they could thereby secure, but really hoping in this way to increase the
profits of his theatre in Bath. After a long struggle he finally got the
ear of William Pitt. The service was established, and his subsidy (which
was to be regulated by the amount saved in carrying the mails) proved so
large that they cut it down to the lump sum of L50,000! The first coach
started on August 8, 1784. Nowadays it causes us to smile when we read
of the tremendous effect produced throughout the country by the news
that this coach left London at eight o'clock in the morning and arrived
at Bristol at eleven the same evening! Such unheard-of speed aroused
wide interest, and had much to do with the great success of Bath as a
fashionable watering-place. Bowling along this historic road we shall
only stop long enough at Bath to see the remains of the baths built by
the Romans, and the famous Pump Room, the scene of the triumphs of Beau
Nash, and many another. We may also take a peep into the small, but
fine, church whose great window surface has earned for it the title of
the "Lantern of the West." It will not detain us long because its glass
is all modern, except in the second embrasure from the west in the north
aisle, where seven shields surmounted by elaborately plumed helmets are
agreeably disposed across the five lancets. On we go out of Bath and
along the narrow valley of the Avon, twelve miles further to smoky
Bristol, squatted like a puffing Dutch burgher at the point where the
Severn empties into the Bristol Channel. Although the great shipping
industry that gave the town its early importance has of late years
diminished, it still retains enough to be an active port of trade. To
some fanciful folk the pall of smoke that hangs over the town may seem a
gloomy retribution for the fact that from the days of the Saxon and the
Norman down to the abolition of slavery, Bristol was the greatest port
in England for that nefarious traffic. Changing to a brighter subject,
this was the harbour from which John Cabot, the Anglicised Venetian, and
his son Sebastian (who was born here), sailed upon their voyages of
discovery across the little-known Atlantic.
The Mayor's Chapel contains some very interesting sixteenth century
glass, but as it was bought abroad and fetched here, it has not, for us,
the interest which we shall feel in the home-made Decorated windows of
the cathedral. Bristol Cathedral lacks the pleasing setting of foliage
and green lawns which one finds about almost every English church.
Indeed, in this respect, it is more like the famous French ones, which
nearly all rely upon architectural charm for their effectiveness.
Inside, the chief matters of interest are the great Tree of Jesse which
fills the east window, and the two large lights on each side of the
chancel. These side windows are glazed in grisaille upon which are
figures framed in canopy, two tiers, one above the other. The most
westerly embrasure of the southerly pair has in its upper row three
canopies which, taken together, show the martyrdom of St. Edmund. He is
within the central canopy, while those on each side contain archers
drawing their bows to shoot at him. The bent knees, the awkward pose of
the heads, &c., show the drawing to be most primitive. The tracery
lights are glazed in red, with white winding vines, and are remarkably
like the traceries at Tewkesbury. The Berkeleys, who gave this glass,
were related to the de Clares of Tewkesbury, so it is more than likely
that they employed the same glazier. The great east window is in a very
good state owing to its restoration in 1847 and is a graceful work of
the Decorated period. The erudite Winston concludes that as it does not
bear the arms of Piers Gaveston (murdered in 1312), and does show those
of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford (slain in open rebellion against
his sovereign in 1322), the date of the window is probably about 1320,
which furthermore is borne out by internal evidence. This great window
rises above and behind the altar and has its nine lancets subdivided
into three groups of three each by two mullions which, as was usual at
that time, curve away from each other when nearing the upper part of the
embrasure. Although the subject is a Tree of Jesse, the patriarch
himself does not appear. The various branches of the vine rise
perpendicularly from the lower sill and are then gracefully intertwined.
The treatment of the personages is the same throughout, each being
enclosed by a loop of the vine. The 1847 restoration was so well done
that except for an occasional harsh note of colour in the robes, it
conceals its modern substitutions quite successfully. The lancets each
contain two figures, one above the other. It is fair to comment that the
encircling vine is rather too light to harmonise well with the figures
in the background.
After descending the hill, crowned by the cathedral, we cross over into
the other part of the town to see the fine church of St. Mary Redcliffe,
where, although there is but little glass, that little is arranged in a
unique manner. Each of the three easterly windows of the south transept
consists of three lancets. For each window there is provided a border
consisting of a series of fifteen small four-pointed openings fitted
over it in the shape of an inverted U. The glazing of these stars
reminds one of the ordinary Decorated treatment of tracery lights.
Within a narrow border is a red field upon the centre of which appears a
coloured boss from which radiate four leaves. The general effect is a
yellowish green. These windows date from about 1360. On the way out let
us stop in the north-west corner of the nave and notice in the north
wall a window filled with a collection of about eighty-five roundels and
heads, all helter-skelter, eked out with fragments from other
embrasures. The effect, though motley, is interesting. A window in the
westerly wall of this corner also contains _debris_, but here it is of
figures and canopies. This church, called by Queen Elizabeth "the
fairest, the goodliest, and the most famous parish church in England,"
is chiefly known for having been the literary browsing-ground of that
infant prodigy Thomas Chatterton, who announced that it was an old chest
in its muniment-room that yielded what he alleged to be transcriptions
from certain ancient Rowley manuscripts. So well were these forgeries
contrived that it took Horace Walpole, himself the constructor of an
imitation Gothic romance ("The Castle of Otranto"), to discover the
fraud. Although but seventeen years old when he committed suicide in
1770, Chatterton had already published a number of writings. No good
American should depart without a glance at the monument and armour of
Admiral Penn, father of our William Penn.
It will be no small relief to emerge from the smoky pall which hangs
over this enterprising city and escape again into the clearer atmosphere
of the charming English country.