Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester Part 3

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST.]

Then, again, note and study the marvellous effects of sound in the building. Listen, if possible, from the Lady Chapel, to an anthem by some old composer; listen to Bach's G minor fugue from the triforium of the choir, and hear the echoes rolling from pier to pier; listen to the Hallelujah Chorus sung on some great festival service in the nave, or some simple well-known hymn sung by close upon 3000 people, and the listener will have some idea of the effect that mere sound, taken as such, can produce.

The sound of Stainer's Gregorian _Miserere_, sung entirely unaccompanied, as heard from the great west door, is grand in the extreme. It needs but little imagination to take oneself back, say, four hundred years, and picture the monks singing the very same Psalm.

The tiles in an ancient building are always of interest, and Gloucester contains many that are worth inspection. There are some in the choir and its chapels, and there are some in the Lady Chapel; others may be found near Raikes' monument, exposed to view in the south aisle. There are also some in the south-east chapel of the triforium of the choir. The chapter-house tiles are modern (Minton), but were made after the tiles that were in existence there.

The nave was originally tiled, and specimens have been found when excavations have been made. In the days that are to come, possibly, the Georgian flooring may be taken up, and the tiles now hidden from view will be revealed in places where they have not been broken up, where graves have been dug in the nave and aisles.

Perhaps the weakest point in the cathedral is the modern gla.s.s. There is much that shows careful work and thought, but there has been no systematic controlling spirit at work to suggest, to guide, or to check.

The chief blots, too, are the so-called memorial windows, and the reason is not hard to find. It is well put by Mr Ruskin, who, in his "Seven Lamps of Architecture," says: "The peculiar manner of selfish and impious ostentation, provoked by the gla.s.smakers for a stimulus to trade, of putting up painted windows to be records of private affection, instead of universal religion, is one of the worst, because most plausible and proud, hypocrisies of our day."

Just imagine the difference in the south aisle, for instance, if there had been a scheme carefully planned beforehand for the windows, instead of the threefold, but haphazard, process of a window offered, a window accepted, a window put up, and no questions asked as to designer or artist. Imagine what the effect might, or would, have been, had the windows, as a set, been designed by Burne-Jones and executed by William Morris, or by other competent artists. Now, unfortunately, these two great artists are dead, and Gloucester has not a single specimen of their work.

The #Nave# as it is (174 feet by 34 feet long, 67 feet 7 inches high) is quite unique, and differs considerably from other Norman naves, such as are to be found in the cathedrals at Ely, Norwich, or Peterborough, and in the neighbouring abbey churches at Tewkesbury, and Great Malvern.

The unique features here are the great height of the ma.s.sive circular columns, fourteen in number, and the consequently dwarfed triforium or gallery running over the main arches. There are traces to be seen of the original Norman clerestory under the Perpendicular windows, and, judging from this, the height of the clerestory, as originally constructed, must have been but little less than that of the piers in the nave.

This Norman clerestory was altered at the same time that the roof of the nave was vaulted--viz. in 1242, in the time of Henry Foliot. This work was done by the monks themselves, who thought, as Professor Willis suggests, that they could do it better than common workmen. Their work is made of a light and porous kind of stone, treated with plaster on the under-side, and it was rendered necessary by the previous roof, which was of wood, having been destroyed by fire in 1190. Of this fire the piers certainly show the traces to this day, all having become reddened and slightly calcined. To make the new clerestory the whole of the original Norman work over the arcade of the triforium was removed, with the exception of the jambs of the side-lights (which extended beyond the arches of the triforium) and the wall between them.

Mr. Gambier Parry has also truly said that this work "was not an artistic success. They cut and maimed the features of the fine old Norman clerestory, and placed their thin weak work too low, destroying all the original grandeur of effect.... Here in this first pointed vaulting was a grievous and irreparable injury, destroying all sense of proportion throughout the building."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NAVE AND NORTH AISLE]

The vaulting shafts and the abaci are of Purbeck marble, and the capitals are of stone, as are also the corbels, bases, mouldings, and bosses. All the stonework was formerly painted. Mr Waller, who carried out the repairs to the nave, had excellent opportunities of seeing what was left of the painting underneath the many coats of whitewash; he wrote in 1856: "The painting may be thus generally described. The hollow of the abacus of the capitals was red, the lower member of the same, green; the whole of the bell red, the leaves alternately green and yellow, with the stalks, running down, of the same colours, into the red bell of the capital. The vertical mouldings between the marble shafts were red and blue alternately; the lower shafts green and blue, with red in the hollows, and the foliage on these also is green and yellow. Some of the horizontal mouldings are partly coloured also. The bosses in the groining are yellow and green, as in the capitals. All the colouring, which was very rich, was effected with water colours; in one instance only has any gold been discerned, and that was upon one of the bosses in the roof."

The fourteen piers are 30 feet 7 inches in height, or about twice the height of those at Norwich.[1]

The Norman piers have round or cus.h.i.+oned capitals. Their arches have zig-zag work in the outer moulding, and a double cable in the soffit. A cable moulding runs along just above the arches. The grotesque heads on the arches in the nave are said to represent the various mummeries of the Anglo-Saxon gleemen. A frieze of such may be seen at Kilpeck Church, in Herefords.h.i.+re. It will be noticed how the cable moulding above the arches pa.s.ses round some of the western vaulting shafts, and is cut away for those at the eastmost end of the nave.

Martin in his "Natural History of England" says: "The only blemish on the church is the enormous size of the pillars in the body of it, which are much too large in proportion to their height, and _would have been reduced to a proper size_, chiefly at the cost of the late Bishop (Benson), had it not been thought that it would have weakened them too much."

Bishop Benson's architect (Mr. Kent), proposed to "flute" the columns, but, finding that the pillars consisted of a stone casing filled with rubble, he changed his plans.

The #West End# of the nave, as also the corresponding portions of the two aisles, was pulled down and reconstructed by Abbot Morewent (1421-1437) in the style known as Perpendicular. It is uncertain whether Morwent's work was built on the same foundation line as the previously existing Norman work. Some have thought that he lengthened the original nave to the extent of one bay. Mr. Hope considers that he curtailed it somewhat, and that the present Deanery building was similarly shortened.

Anyone who will take the trouble to s.p.a.ce out with a compa.s.s the distance between the centres of the piers in the nave on the plan will be inclined to fall in with this suggestion.

Abbot Morwent, according to Leland, intended, "if he had lived, to have made the whole body of the church of like worke." It is a matter for rejoicing that he was not spared to carry out his intentions. His work, though it has been censured, is, as Mr Waller points out, exceedingly good of its kind. Morwent may have found the west end in danger of falling, just as the towers that flanked the Norman west front had collapsed in the twelfth century.

How Morwent would have made the whole body of the church "of like worke"

is another matter for speculation. Would he have kept the Norman piers in their present position, and revaulted the roof after the model of his vaulting in the second bay from the west end, or would he have diminished the number of piers so as to give a distance between them equal to the s.p.a.ce between the west wall and the first pier he erected?

It is difficult to realise how such a herculean task would have been carried out with safety to the fabric.

As to the work demolished by Morwent to make room for his own, it is only possible to hazard the conjecture that the original west front of Gloucester was something like that of the abbey at Tewkesbury, but with the additional finish of two larger western towers. As the two churches were being built almost at the same time, this conjecture seems reasonable.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SOUTH AISLE OF NAVE.]

The #South Aisle# of the nave was originally of Norman work, similar in style to that of the north aisle; but was remodelled and rebuilt to such an extent by Abbot Thokey, in or about the year 1318, that the piers and portions of the south wall are all that remain of the Norman work. He desired probably to preserve the Norman vaulting (similar to that yet existing in the north aisle of the nave), and as the south wall had inclined outwards, and the whole fabric of the aisle was from this cause in danger, he erected large b.u.t.tresses to prevent further settlement; but failing in this design, he was compelled to take down the Norman vaulting, and he then subst.i.tuted vaulting of the same style of architecture as the b.u.t.tresses he had just erected. Such great care could scarcely have been taken in those days to preserve the Norman piers only; the first object must have been to retain, for economical reasons, as much as could possibly be retained of the old aisle. It may be remarked also that the Norman piers incline in some cases as much as one foot towards the south, and the b.u.t.tresses of Abbot Thokey also incline in the same direction from three to four inches in their whole height. The Abbot's b.u.t.tresses, therefore, must have gone out of the perpendicular after their first erection, or else the present vaulting would show settlements, which it certainly does not.

The tracery of the windows is unusual in design, and is similar to that in a window of the chapel at Merton College, Oxford. Ball-flower mouldings adorn the aisle windows inside and out between the south door and the steps leading up to the south transept, and the same ornament is repeated in the vaulting of three of the bays and in the triforium of the choir.[2]

Abbot Morwent's work at the west end of this aisle is similar to that in the north aisle.

The #Monuments# in this aisle are not numerous, but are of modern historic interest. Near the west end of the nave is a statue by Silvier to Dr Jenner, who introduced the practice of vaccination. Under the west window of this aisle is an interesting wall-tablet in a canopy to John Jones, who was registrar to eight bishops of the diocese. The background is formed of files of doc.u.ments, with their seals and dates exposed to view. There is taste in the colouring, and the design is effective. John Jones was M.P. for Gloucester at the exciting time of the Gunpowder Plot. He is said to have had the monument put up in his lifetime, and to have died soon after it was completed.

After pa.s.sing the south door, a marble sarcophagus, with a bust upon it, will be noticed. This is to the memory of Sir G. Onesiphorus Paul, Baronet, (by Sievier). His name is well-known in connection with prison reforms. Close by is a wall tablet to the widow of Sir Wm. Strachan (1770). The carving, which is very delicate and beautiful, is by Thomas Ricketts, a Gloucester sculptor of considerable skill.

There is also a monument to Rev. Thomas Stock, who, with Robert Raikes, was instrumental in opening Sunday schools.

#The great West Window# contains nine lights which were glazed by Wailes of Newcastle, to the memory of Dr J. H. Monk, Bishop of Gloucester from 1830 to 1856.

The #Font# is situated in the westernmost bay of the south aisle, on the site of the old Consistory Court, formerly railed off from the rest of the nave. The font being of red Aberdeen granite clashes rather with the prevailing grey stone of the building, is very heavy in appearance, and, in spite of the workmans.h.i.+p spent upon it, quite uninteresting. The north side contains a representation of the two prophets, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, separated by the ark; the west side has figures of St. Matthew and Daniel; the south side has figures of St. Mark and St. Luke, and the baptism of Christ in the Jordan, and the east contains the emblems of the Trinity and of baptism.

The #Windows# in this south aisle are the least interesting in the cathedral, and would seem to have been made without much consideration of the fact that they were to go where a south light would come upon them.

The five-light _west window_ of the aisle is in memory of Dr Jenner and his friend Dr Baron. The subjects, appropriately enough, refer to miracles of healing, or restoring to life.

The _first south window_ is to John Elliott, a solicitor, and the subjects are more or less legal. The gla.s.s is by Hardman.

The _second window_ (three lights) is in memory of Miss Evans, and was put up in 1861 by Bell of Bristol. The colouring must be seen to be appreciated at its proper worth.

The _third window_ is a memorial to Sir W. G. Davy, K.C.B., who died in 1856, and is buried in the cloister. The gla.s.s is by Warrington.

The _fourth window_, to the memory of Sir W. Guise, Bart., is rather kaleidoscopic in effect, owing to its being mainly an armorial window, and, secondarily, historical. The historical portion represents the Coronation of Henry III. in Gloucester Cathedral in 1216, by Gualo (the Papal legate) and Peter de Rupibus, or des Roches, Bishop of Winchester.

In the left centre light is Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, and in the right is Joceline, Bishop of Bath.

The gla.s.s is by Clayton & Bell.

The _fifth window_ is a memorial window to Mrs. Evans. In colour it resembles the third window, and is by the same artist.

The _sixth window_ is a memorial to Mrs Ellis. It is historical, but bristles with anachronisms.

The _seventh window_ is a memorial (executed by Warrington) to Jeremiah Nettleton Balme.

The _eighth window_ is in memory of Lieut.-Col. Sir Harry Francis Colville Darell, who died in 1853.

#North Aisle.#--This aisle retains its original Norman vaulting. The Norman piers, which correspond to the piers in the nave, are divided into several members, and their capitals are in some cases richly carved. In each bay the jambs and heads are of old work, filled in with Perpendicular tracing. A stone bench along the wall is also Perpendicular.

The door into the cloister at the west end of the aisle contains some very fine work. The wall is panelled on either side, and the panels are said to have formerly had paintings of the twelve apostles. The side niches and the canopy work over the door should be examined.

The door at the eastern end of the aisle by which access is gained to the cloisters and the chapter-house is also of Perpendicular work. Both of these doors have fan-vaulted recesses, like the great west door of the nave. They are so contrived that the doors may open into them and occupy the minimum of s.p.a.ce.

Over the east door in the cloisters there were blazoned some years back the arms of the See, the Bishop, the Dean, the Canons, the Darell and Nightingall families.

The west end of the aisle is the work of Abbot Morwent, and is of the same date as his reconstructed west end of the nave--viz. 1421-1437.

The _west window_ in this aisle was filled with gla.s.s by Hardman. It is a memorial to Wm. Viner Ellis of Minsterworth. Subject: Events in the life of King Lucius, who is said to have been the first Christian king in this land, and to have been buried in the Church of St. Mary de Lode.