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

The height of the gable is said to be 103 feet, and that of the towers 110 feet, and the front is divided by the string-courses into four stages. In the central compartment the lowest stage is approached by three steps, and is filled by three doorways, set in a thickening of the wall, and surmounted by gables finished with crosses. The central entrance, higher, more widely splayed, and more deeply recessed than the others, has five orders and five triple shafts in the jamb, while they have three orders and three shafts, the innermost of which is triple and the others single. As usual in this style, the shafts are detached and not worked on the stones of the jamb. The mouldings of the capitals are carried through the jamb from end to end, and on the front of the piers between the archways is a curious moulding which resembles an undercut roll set up on end, and which has a capital as if it were a shaft. In the arches the mouldings are chiefly rounds and hollows: many of the former are filleted, and some of the latter are filled with the dog-tooth (an ornament peculiar to this style), which is more profusely employed in the central arch than in the others. The terminations of the dripstones are foliated and stand out detached. The central gable is adorned with a square panel of foliage, and either of the others with a sunk foliated quatrefoil, and between the gables are spouts issuing from the heads of animals. It is worthy of remark that all three doors open into the nave; for as a rule when a church has three west doors, two of them open into the aisles.[34] The wooden doors in these and all the doorways of the church are of considerable age, and those in the central archway here bear the date 1673 in nails.

Above the doors is a tier of five lancet windows, and above these another tier, also of five, which diminish in height toward the sides, the last window at either end being, however, as high as the tier below.

These tiers occupy the whole width of the compartment. Above them, again, is a group of three small lancets graduated to the gable and placed very high, with a string-course below them. These serve to light the s.p.a.ce between the internal and external roofs. In all this work the detail is of the very best: the various arches are richly moulded and supported by cl.u.s.ters of engaged shafts, which in the two great tiers are banded at about half their height, and the dog-tooth ornament is everywhere employed profusely. The lower tier is the more elaborate--its mouldings more numerous, its shafts more richly cl.u.s.tered, its capitals covered with foliage; and between the second and third lancets from the right there is a small niche with a toothed edge and the remains of a figure. At either end of the two tiers an ornament not unlike the ball-flower of the Decorated style is carried up the jamb, and a bold corbel-table runs up the sides of the gable, under the apex of which there is a trefoil panel, while the whole is crowned by an elaborate cross.

[Ill.u.s.tration: VIEW FROM THE NORTH-WEST.]

In the towers the lowest of the four stages is relieved by a little arcade of six trefoiled arches, with detached shafts, fluted capitals, and dripstones not trefoiled and terminating in heads. Each of the three upper stages is occupied by three tall lancets, of which that in the centre, higher and broader than the others, is pierced and (except in the belfry) glazed. In their enrichment these arcades resemble the windows of the central compartment. The second stage is not quite so high here in the towers as it is there, and the level of the string-course above is consequently broken. The third stage, taller than the second, reaches to the springing of the gable. The fourth, taller than the third, rises somewhat above the gable cross, and the shafts of the lancets are twice banded, while above are two circular panels, which on the north tower are raised and contain quatrefoils, but on the south tower are sunk and contain trefoils. On the other faces of these towers the arches are not so richly moulded, and the shafts are single and also detached, except in the uppermost stage of the north tower, where they are engaged and filleted. As the second stage does not descend so low upon the western face as upon the other faces, the string-course below it, after pa.s.sing round the corners of the facade, is stopped, and when it is resumed it pa.s.ses above the sill of the arcade, being carried round the little plinths of the shafts. All the string-courses, it will be noticed, are enriched with the nailhead moulding. The b.u.t.tresses rise to the parapets without diminis.h.i.+ng in breadth or projection--an early feature, and three large rolls or beads are worked upon their edge.

Those that flank the portal have each a large niche at the bottom, with engaged shafts, and the head and dripstone trefoiled. At the corners of the facade, where the staircases are, the b.u.t.tresses are triple. The original corbel-table, surmounted by a row of dog-tooth ornament, remains at the top of the towers, but the battlements and pinnacles have been put up since the removal of the spires in 1664, and were renewed in 1797.

The bells, ten in number, are in the south tower. Of the mediaeval peal, which consisted of six bells, the largest, known as the _Klank Knoll_, was made in 1379 at York, and perhaps hung in the north tower; while some of the others seem to have been made in Ripon in 1391. They were all recast in 1761 by Lester & Pack of London, after which there were eight. Two of these (Nos. 4 and 7) were recast in 1866 by Warner of London, and two new bells (Nos. 1 and 2), by Shaw of Bradford, have been added since 1890. The ninth bell is rung every evening at nine for the curfew. The mediaeval clock, mentioned in 1379, has long vanished; another was put up in 1723; the present clock (by Thwaites of Clerkenwell) dates from 1808.

The whole front has been much restored by Sir Gilbert Scott, especially the doorways and the towers. The latter were badly cracked through settlement (due partly to the fact that in either tower one of the sides is older than the rest),[35] but, as Sir Gilbert himself declared, they are once more strong enough to bear spires, and it is to be hoped that the hint will some day be taken. The more the west front of Ripon is studied, the more it becomes apparent how much thought has been expended upon it. Yet as a work of art it is perplexing. To some it will appear beautiful as a design; to others its excellence of detail will be its only commendation, and they will complain that the tiers of windows are wider than the gable, that there is a disproportion between the little arcade in the lowest stage of the towers and the great lancets in the upper stages, that the height of the latter makes the towers appear top-heavy, that the whole facade lacks projection and depth of shade, and that there is too much gla.s.s. Some dissatisfaction was felt, as the Fabric Rolls indicate, in 1379, when masons were employed to divide each of the large windows into two lights with a quatrefoil above.[36] The mullions and quatrefoils remained till our own day, when they were removed by Sir Gilbert Scott, whose action the present state of expert opinion on restoration would severely condemn.

=The Nave. North Side.=--By being rebuilt with the addition of aisles, the nave became as wide as the west front. Its width is 87 feet internally and nearly 100 feet externally, and it is the widest nave in England after York, Winchester, Chichester, and St. Paul's. The date of the rebuilding is indicated by a Chapter minute of 1502, which alludes to the _onus canonicis modo impositum super reaedificationem navis_. The Fabric Rolls mention the purchase of stone in 1503, and the roofing of some "new work" in 1505, while a will of 1508 requires the testator's body to be buried in "the new work of the College Church." These are doubtless references to the south side, which is evidently the older and bears internally the arms of Archbishop Savage (1501-1507). Again, an indulgence of 1512, by Archbishop Bainbridge (1508-1514), alluding to the demolition of the old nave as then complete, suggests that the north wall had been left standing till then, and the laying of the foundation of the north aisle, which bears his arms, is mentioned in the Roll for 1512-13. It appears from the Rolls that the main roof was up by 1520-21.

Lastly, Leland's allusion to "the body of the Chirch of late dayes made of a great Widnesse" shows that the main part of the work was finished at any rate by about 1538.[37]

The nave is divided--east of the towers--into six bays, of which the easternmost is narrower than the rest, to answer to a fragment of the old nave preserved within. The plinth is considerably higher than that of the west front.

On the north side, the six b.u.t.tresses project 5 feet at the base and rise to the parapet in two stages, which are crowned by gables. These gables have their sides curved inwards and are adorned with crockets and finials, the latter being attached to the front of the gable, while grotesques project from the angles. The windows are of three lights, and are rather acutely jointed and deeply set for such late work, and their arches are well moulded, a broad hollow running up the sides. As is often the case in late work, there are no sub-arches in the tracery, and the mullions are carried up through the head. The easternmost of these windows is of two lights, and has a transom in the tracery, and the westernmost is shortened to allow of a doorway of four-centred form beneath. Below the sills runs a string-course, which rises to pa.s.s over the door. The parapet is battlemented, not for military purposes but for ornament, and at intervals are the beginnings of panelled pinnacles, set diagonally and partially embedded in the battlements. The clearstorey has no pilasters or b.u.t.tresses, but where it joins the west tower a projecting strip of masonry may be seen half imbedded in the Early English work and half in the Perpendicular. This is, without doubt, the upper part of one of the b.u.t.tresses of the old nave.

The clearstorey windows are actually larger than those of the aisle below, and are again rather acutely pointed for late work. They are of five lights, and the two mullions in the middle are carried up through the head, but a sub-arch comprises the two outer lights on either side.

The last window eastwards is of three lights, is shorter than the rest, and has several transoms in the tracery. In the parapet, the coping is not carried down the sides of the battlements as it is on the aisles, and the rudimentary pinnacles spring from grotesque corbels at the string-course, with a plain corbel at the side of each to carry the water-spout.

=The Central Tower. North and West Sides.=--The central tower of Ripon is probably unique among towers in being divided vertically between two different styles of architecture. Its north and west sides are Archbishop Roger's work,[38] but the other sides are Perpendicular, having been rebuilt after the collapse of the south-east angle. Seen from the north-west, however, it presents much the same appearance now as in the twelfth century, and either side displays a pair of round-headed windows, with the weathering of the original roof rising high between them and (on the west face) cutting off their corners. The windows have a shaft in the jamb, and the abacus of the capitals is continued round the tower as a string, but interrupted by the b.u.t.tresses and weatherings, as is also another string below the sills.

In the windows of the north side there is a s.p.a.ce or tympanum over the inner arch. Each corner of the tower was strengthened by a pair of flat b.u.t.tresses, with one shaft at the corner itself and another at the inner side of either b.u.t.tress, and with the shafts banded half way up and again near the top. These b.u.t.tresses are received in an overhanging corbel-table, above which runs a hollow moulding, filled with dog-tooth ornament of a large size and continued round the projections that serve for gargoyles. The use of this Early English ornament in a scheme which might otherwise be pure Norman affords a good instance of the Transitional character of the work. The battlements are later.

=The North Transept=, with the three adjacent bays of the choir, gives some idea of the external appearance of Archbishop Roger's church.[39]

The date of the beginning of the work ascribed to him is placed within his lifetime (1154-1181) by his own words quoted in Chapter I. The transept is divided by the string-courses into four stages, and has a very ma.s.sive plinth which is lower than that of the nave, thus expressing the slope of the ground. The west wall is shorter than the east and has two bays only, but south of the second bay, and separated from it by a flat pilaster, is a narrow s.p.a.ce, along the top of which are the remains of a cornice: the two bays proper are separated by a recessed b.u.t.tress of some projection. One round-headed window, divided by a mullion, appears in the second stage; and in the fourth stage are two plain, round-headed windows, not subdivided. The original corbel-table remains above, but it is surmounted by a (probably) fourteenth century battlemented parapet, which is returned over the central b.u.t.tress, forming a square turret, which has a (renewed) gargoyle below it, and is pierced with a cross. The b.u.t.tresses at the north-west corner of the transept, where is a staircase, are cl.u.s.tered and rise to the top of the wall, and like most Norman b.u.t.tresses, and some of Early English date (as in the west front), they do not diminish as they ascend. The large b.u.t.tress on the west side of this corner has two carved stones built into it at the height of about eighteen feet from the ground. They are covered with patterns resembling the knots so often found on ancient crosses, and are of especial interest as being possibly survivals of the church built by St. Wilfrid.[40] It is noticeable that the first string-course is the only one which is not carried round the b.u.t.tresses at this corner. A recessed b.u.t.tress of the same type separates the end of the transept from that of an aisle which is thrown out from its eastern side.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOORWAY, NORTH TRANSEPT.]

The lowest stage of this north elevation is blank save for a rather interesting doorway set in a thickening of the wall near the western corner. In this doorway the innermost arch is of unusual form--a trefoil resting on corbels--and its edges are left square and plain. Over it is a semicircular arch of three orders with three detached shafts in either jamb, and as usual throughout almost all Archbishop Roger's work, the arch has the edge-roll between hollows (here on every order), the shafts are detached, their bases round upon square, and their capitals square-topped, with the edge of the abacus hollowed. The capitals here are enriched with good foliage of a rather cla.s.sical type.

In the stage above are three round-headed windows with a shaft in either jamb and foliage on the capitals. Each of these windows, like that on the west side, and several in the other transept, has been divided by a mullion into two lights, presumably in the fourteenth century.[41] The third stage, which corresponds to the triforium within, is blank here as on the west side, and in the fourth stage are three round-headed windows, plainly recessed and chamfered. The gable, on which stands a plain cross, has been lowered, as is shown by the weathering on the tower, and its sides, after descending, take an upward turn to meet the corners. It is flanked by two lofty square turrets, which have been compared with those on the west front of Tewkesbury. They have a shaft at each angle, are pierced on each face with two round-headed openings under a round arch, with a string below running round the turret, and are surmounted by pyramidal stone caps ending in pommels and having a rude pinnacle at each corner. The end of the aisle is set back, and displays a window like the three above the door, but without the dividing mullion; and above this a round-headed niche, doubtless once a window that lighted the s.p.a.ce over the aisle-vault; while a round arch over this niche, and a little pointed arch on the b.u.t.tress adjacent westwards, carry a curious thickening of the masonry above. The arrangement of the windows here breaks the continuity of the first string-course, which, after crossing the main elevation, has to be stopped and resumed at a lower level in order to pa.s.s beneath the windows of the aisle. At the corner of the latter are more cl.u.s.tered b.u.t.tresses, terminating below the parapet, and above them rises a plain gabled pinnacle (an addition, probably, of the fourteenth century), while another b.u.t.tress, rising from the inclined coping of the aisle-wall, runs up the clearstorey.

The east side of the aisle has two more b.u.t.tresses like those at the corner, and consists of two bays, each containing a window like that at the end. It is hard to say whether the moulded string or cornice below the parapet is original, but the gargoyle which juts from it and the parapet itself, with its cruciform piercings, are not earlier than the fourteenth century. The roofs of the aisles in both transepts and in the choir have been lowered, and it has been suggested that this was done at the time when the Minster was fortified against the Scots, in order to afford better standing-room for armed men,[42] and the various battlements on choir and transepts were probably erected for the same occasion. Here the round arches of the triforium have been built up, and the clearstorey harmonizes with the more elaborate scheme of the choir.

The wall is divided into three bays by flat pilasters received in the cornice, and each bay contains a round arch, pierced and glazed, between two lower and narrower pointed arches, all resting on single detached shafts. Between the b.u.t.tresses runs a corbel-table, supporting a battlemented parapet of Decorated character, in which the merlons are of great width in proportion to the embrasures--an early feature--and have the usual cruciform piercings, so splayed at the back as to leave no doubt that they were really intended for the use of archers. The three gargoyles below have been renewed, and none of the gargoyles on choir or transepts are earlier, perhaps, than the Decorated period.

=The Choir. North Side.=--Here the three westernmost bays of the aisle and clearstorey respectively are Archbishop Roger's work. Two flat pilaster-b.u.t.tresses rise out of the slope of the plinth and run up the aisle-wall, each terminating short of the parapet in two sets-off close together. The level of the window-sills was the same here as in the transept, but the string-course has been broken in the Decorated period by the insertion of three slender windows, each having two lights with a quatrefoil above. Above the windows comes the moulded string or cornice continued from the transept, and above this the pierced merlons of the Decorated battlement are again very broad in proportion to the embrasures. Instead of being built up, the exposed arches of the triforium have here been glazed. The clearstorey resembles that of the transept, but the corbel table is surmounted here by a slope, on which rest two large gargoyles (renewed), and instead of a Decorated battlement there is a plain coping.

The last three bays of the clearstorey and the last two of the aisle are Decorated work, probably of the end of the thirteenth century, and here the level of the plinth is again lowered to suit the slope of the ground. In the aisle the two bays are separated from the rest and from each other by b.u.t.tresses having a projection of 8 feet. Either of these b.u.t.tresses is crowned by a gable having a finial, and is surmounted by a tall square pinnacle to receive the thrust of a flying b.u.t.tress that spans the aisle; and either pinnacle has its sides panelled and gabled, a head at each corner, and five finials. The two last aisle-windows are larger than those in the western bays, but have much the same tracery.

They have, however, a thick shaft worked on the stones of the jamb, and a large keeled round on the edge of the arch, and there is no dripstone.

Below them is a small string-course, which is carried round the east end. The string or cornice above them is made to match that on the western portion of the aisle, but in the battlement the merlons are of merely ordinary width. In the clearstorey the wall is considerably set back from the Transitional bays, and the three windows are very elaborate. Their arches are richly moulded and acutely pointed, the springing-line being rather low down. Each window is divided into four lights, comprised under two sub-arches, either of which contains a circle enclosing a trefoil, while above, in the head of the window, is a large circle with five trefoils radiating from its centre. The dripstones end in heads. A moulded string-course, with gargoyles, runs below the parapet, which is a continuation of the plain coping on the western bays.

From this point it will be best to return to the west front, and proceed along the south side of the Cathedral.

=The Nave. South Side.=--This side is architecturally superior to the other, and differs from it greatly in detail. The plinth, which is very ma.s.sive, rises even higher above that of the west front here than it does there, and the b.u.t.tresses project over 8 feet at the base and are of three stages, and the gables on these have their sides straight, their eaves everywhere continued to the wall, and their corners enriched with heads, but on the second stage only. In the two easternmost b.u.t.tresses the lowest stage has heads also, and in the last b.u.t.tress eastwards this stage, for some unexplained reason, is twice as broad as the others, and has an ogee gable. On all gables the crockets are large, and the finials, which here stand upon the apex, are huge and very boldly executed; while the rudimentary pinnacles are thicker here than on the north side and more detached from the parapet. The wall is thickened up to the windows, below which there is a set-off, and the windows themselves are so moulded as to seem set in heavy frames, and are much less acutely pointed than in the other aisle, their arches approaching the 'drop' form. The rather clumsy mullions are carried up through the head, but branch out to form arches over the side lights, and are reduced in thickness above the branching point; and in the head there is a transom, except in the narrow easternmost window. Though the aisles differ so much, the clearstorey is much the same on this side as on the other, and again one of Archbishop Roger's b.u.t.tresses is visible, imbedded between the Perpendicular walling and the west tower. The height of his roof is indicated by the weathering on the central tower and by the west gable, and the sixteenth century roof was probably not lower, for the central tower shows high weatherings of the latter period also; but the pitch had been lowered before the last restoration, and Sir Gilbert Scott was unable to raise it to the full height. It is to be hoped that the raising may yet be accomplished, and that lead may be subst.i.tuted for slate.

=The South Transept=, all but its eastern side, is mainly Archbishop Roger's work. The plinth is altogether lower not only than that of the nave, and even of the west front, but also than that of the other transept, and the architecture thus expresses the downward slope of the ground from north to south as well as from west to east. Here, as in the nave, the b.u.t.tresses have a greater projection than on the north side of the church, as if the ground here were more liable to settle. As this transept bears a general resemblance to the other, it will be best to note only the points in which they differ. In the west wall the window in the second stage has no mullion, the innermost b.u.t.tress is of the same type as its next neighbour, and the parapet is returned over all the b.u.t.tresses, thus forming three 'turrets,' of which that nearest to the nave rests partially on a large corbel. The staircase at the south-west corner terminates at the top in a square turret with a pyramidal stone cap.

In the south elevation the doorway is very elaborate. The opening is of the form sometimes called the shouldered arch, a square lintel (which, curiously enough, is not one stone) resting on corbels; and the semicircular arch over this is of four orders, the uppermost of which projects considerably from the wall. On either side there are five shafts, the outermost order having two, which are placed on the front of the jamb and share one abacus. These two shafts are worked on the stones of the jamb--a mode of construction not very common in such early doorways. The details resemble those of the less elaborate doorway in the other transept, but some of the foliage on the capitals here is almost Early English. This doorway is approached by five steps, and was once covered by a Renaissance porch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DOORWAY, SOUTH TRANSEPT.]

In the windows of the second stage the abacus of the capitals is continued as a string from window to window. The two flanking b.u.t.tresses have been crowned at some later period with gables ending in finials, and the great gable is pierced with a Perpendicular window of three lights, which has three transoms in the head, the mullions carried up to the archivolt, and a dripstone ending in foliage. The sides of the gable here do not take an upward turn to meet the corners, and there are no flanking turrets. In the end of the aisle the blocked upper window is pointed, and has a little trefoiled niche above and to the left of it, and there is no thickening of the masonry above to necessitate carrying-arches. The b.u.t.tresses at the corner reach to the top of the parapet and have no surmounting pinnacle. The small portion of the east side of the aisle which is not concealed by the Chapter-house and Lady-loft displays in the lower stage a somewhat inexplicable blind arch, carrying an inclined thickening of the masonry that has been afterwards built up to a level, and below the parapet a moulded cornice like that on the north side of the church. This cornice is continued within the Lady-loft, and reappears over the last bay of the choir-aisle.

=The Chapter-House.=--The south aisle of the choir is concealed by a wing of three storeys, of which the lowest, though exposed to view by the conditions of the site, is of the nature of a crypt, while the second comprises the Chapter-house and vestry, and the third, known as the Lady-loft, is an addition, probably of the fourteenth century. The first two storeys seem to have formed part of a church earlier than Archbishop Roger's,[43] and have been variously ascribed to Archbishops Thurstan (1114-1141)[44] and Thomas of Bayeux (1069-1100).[45] From the east wall of these two storeys an apse is thrown out, upon which rests a square projection from the Lady-loft, too short to be called a chancel. The two westernmost b.u.t.tresses, up to the string above the crypt, are evidently additions by Archbishop Roger, while the third, which completely encases a three-sided apsidal projection at the corner of the vestry, is of much later date and will be examined presently. Adjoining it is a flat pilaster b.u.t.tress, apparently original. The crypt has five unglazed windows along the south side, all round-headed and plainly splayed, and, where it joins the transept, there is a large rectangular squint which gives light to a staircase that leads up to the Chapter-house. A pointed doorway, made in later times, cuts into the fourth window from the west.

In the second storey there are on this side only four windows, which are s.p.a.ced without any regard to the position of those below. The two westernmost, which are circular and without tracery--a type of window that is somewhat rare--can hardly be later than the time of Archbishop Roger, and may be earlier: the next two are square and of much later date. Above the windows the eaves of the original roofs remain, supported on a corbel-table which is carried round the apsidal chamber at the corner and round the eastern apse. At the south side of the latter the builders have left a narrow recess which extends from the ground nearly to the top of the crypt.

The apse displays in the lower storey a round-headed unglazed window like those along the south wall, and in the upper storey a small round-headed light at the south side and a larger window in the middle, of the same size as that below, but not so deeply splayed, and with the head rudely trefoiled. On either side of these central windows, a shaft, made in short joints, runs up the apse from base to eaves. The string between the two storeys is carried round these shafts, and their circular bases overhang the plinth and rest on small blocks, while the capitals are square-topped, as in Archbishop Roger's work. From the roof of this apse and of the apsidal chamber at the corner, and from the eaves that project along the south wall, it would seem that the whole structure was roofed with stone at a steep inclination. Where its wall joins the transept the stone-work seems to be of the same date on both sides of the corner, so that there may have been an original b.u.t.tress or wall extending southwards from this point.

The third storey is now the Cathedral library, but was originally the =Lady-chapel=, and was commonly called the Lady-loft. Such a position for a Lady-chapel--at the south side of the choir, and in an upper storey--is extremely unusual.[46] Authorities have differed widely as to its date. Some have a.s.signed it to about 1482; but the Lady-loft is clearly mentioned in the Treasurers' Rolls in 1470, and its architecture, which is Decorated rather than Perpendicular, would be in favour of ascribing it to the middle of the previous century, were it not for a certain coa.r.s.eness of execution which makes a suspension of judgment advisable.[47] To support this additional storey, the two western b.u.t.tresses were carried up, diminis.h.i.+ng both in projection and in width, to within a few feet of the upper string-course. The huge b.u.t.tress at the corner was very possibly added later, to counteract a settlement which is evident to anyone so standing as to bring the shafts on the apse in line with the corner of the choir, and which was doubtless due to the weight of the Lady-loft. This b.u.t.tress is of the same height as the others, but is broader, and has as many as seven stages, the fourth of which is crowned by a truncated hip roof and pierced with a slit to light the apsidal chamber within, from whose sloping top the upper stages spring. Traces of some external means of access to this apsidal chamber from below may be seen at the west side.

Except one small lancet adjoining this b.u.t.tress, the windows of the Lady-loft are square-headed, with mullions branching out into intersecting arches whose cusps spring from the soffit independently of the mouldings--an early feature; and the dripstones are square labels terminating in foliage, but with the ends not returned. Altogether these are more like the windows of a castle or manor-house than of a church.

The four towards the south are of three lights, but the east window has five lights and is set higher in the wall, while its dripstone terminates at one end in a grotesque sitting figure. Various gargoyles project from the string-course, which rises to pa.s.s over the east window. The angles of the east end seem to rest upon the very edge of the cornice of the apse, and one wonders how the wall is supported along the chord of the curve. In reality, however, the apse is not so sharply curved internally as externally, and its walls are very thick, so that the square form could be imposed upon the round without much overlapping. The parapet shows the same wide merlons and cruciform piercings which characterize the other Decorated parapets of the church, and it may have been brought forward from the choir-aisle.

The last bay of the latter displays a window like those on the north side, but having foliage on the capitals of the shafts; and below the parapet runs the cornice continued from the transept, with a curious gargoyle upon it. Part of the base of Archbishop Roger's choir-aisle is visible imbedded between this wall and the apse.

Those parts of the church which were rebuilt after the collapse of the south-east corner of the tower can be best examined from the roof of the Lady-loft, which forms with the roofs of the aisles a level surface of considerable extent.

=The East Side of the South Transept= has three b.u.t.tresses, crowned by pinnacles of which the two nearest to the tower are modern. The central b.u.t.tress is much shallower than the others and has a different termination. The clearstorey displays three well-arched windows of three lights (the innermost window a little smaller than the others) with tracery not unlike that in the south aisle of the nave. The parapet is probably old Decorated work that has been used again, for it has the wide merlons and cruciform piercings characteristic of early battlements, and the Perpendicular pinnacles, it will be noticed, are not in the middle of the merlons. The manner in which the corner of the tower has been reconstructed is extremely interesting. Up the angle formed by choir and transept runs a sort of excrescence of masonry that blossoms out, so to speak, into an extraordinary complication of corbelling near the top, and is itself corbelled away at the bottom. In this excrescence, as elsewhere, old materials have been used again, and in the projecting ma.s.s, at the level of both triforium and clearstorey, are the springings of arches curving eastwards and southwards, which suggest that the adjoining walls had at first been intended to be on a more advanced plane, and that the arches of the triforium were to have been round in the transept (where, by the way, they are recessed) as they are in the choir. This angle contains the tower staircase, which is lighted by a little window in the upper corbelling and is reached from the clearstorey gallery of the transept. On this side of the church the parapet walk has to be carried round the corners of the tower on squinches.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RECONSTRUCTED ANGLE OF THE GREAT TOWER, (SOUTH TRANSEPT AND CHOIR.)]

=The Central Tower. South and East Sides.=--The south and east faces are each divided by a central pilaster running up to the top of the parapet, but otherwise the general scheme is not unlike that of the older sides, save that the windows here are set higher in the wall. Each window has two lights, wide and low, with much tracery above them, in which the mullion branches into two sub-arches; and there are dripstones ending in heads. The high weathering on these sides indicates that it was not in the Perpendicular period that the roofs of the church were so unfortunately lowered. At either end of each of these sides a b.u.t.tress rises to the base of the parapet in three stages, the second of which has on the front a panel with an ogee crocketed hood and is crowned by a gable with a grotesque at each corner, while the third is narrower, but is also panelled. Various gargoyles project from the uppermost string, which on the east side is not broken by the central pilaster. As this string is higher than the corbel-table of the older sides, the tower presents a very curious appearance when seen from the south-west or north-east.[48] The battlements and pinnacles were perhaps first added when the south and east sides were rebuilt, but in places they have been much renewed. The stair-turret is surmounted by a hexagonal stone cap, which is pierced with a spire-light and crowned by a finial; and there is also a wooden polygonal bell-cote at the north-west corner of the tower. At the north-east angle the Perpendicular masonry turns the corner and enfolds the Transitional b.u.t.tresses, where it stops with a jagged edge. This unfinished work has a considerable projection from the Transitional walling, the intention having been, perhaps, to correct externally the obliquity in the ground plan of Roger's tower;[49] it is also corbelled away at the bottom, probably to afford freer pa.s.sage along the parapet walk and to avoid the necessity of a squinch.

Originally the tower had perhaps a low pyramidal roof without a parapet, and then came several successive spires. The last of these, which fell in 1660, is said to have been 120 feet high from the top of the tower, and its disappearance has surely done more than anything else to spoil the external effect of the building.[50]

=The South Side of the Choir.=--Here the three westernmost bays are Perpendicular and the others Decorated. The westernmost window is smaller than the rest, and is of three lights, with the mullions carried up through the head. The next two windows imitate in curvature their Decorated neighbours, and are of four lights, with the central mullion branching out to form two sub-arches, between which a foliated circle, a feature not common in Perpendicular windows, is introduced into the head. In the fourth bay the Decorated arch has been filled with Perpendicular tracery, but the fifth and sixth windows remain in their original beauty as on the north side, save that in the easternmost the small circles have been mutilated and have lost their foliation. The two flying b.u.t.tresses resemble those on the north side, but from the points where they meet the wall two pilasters run up into the parapet, which is flush with them and is crowned by a plain coping, while beneath it is a string, with gargoyles. Except at this end the wall, as in the clearstorey of the nave, is not b.u.t.tressed, notwithstanding the size of the windows and their nearness together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLYING b.u.t.tRESSES, SOUTH SIDE OF CHOIR.]

=The East End.=--The rebuilding of the east end of Archbishop Roger's choir was probably the object of an indulgence of 1284 by Archbishop Wickwaine, a brief of 1285 by Pope Celestine V., two indulgences issued in 1288 and 1300 respectively by Archbishops Roma.n.u.s and Corbridge, and some credentials issued by the latter in 1302 for a collector of funds.

And yet it is hard to fix the date of the work with any exactness. It had apparently not begun in 1286, for a mandate of Archbishop Roma.n.u.s in that year begins _Cancellus Rypon' ruinosus reparetur_; but it may have been completed before the irruption of the Scots in 1318. Two indulgences of Archbishop Melton, one of which is dated 1328, do indeed allude to some "new work" as still unfinished, but this "new work" may have been the repairs necessitated by the violence of the Scots.[51] The east end of the Cathedral, then, recalls that period in our history when Edward I. was wrestling with the Scottish problem, and was also carrying into effect those lessons in representative government which he had learnt from Simon de Montfort.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE EAST END.]

The well-marked plinth of this east end has been already noticed. Either corner of the choir contains a staircase, and is strengthened by a pair of ma.s.sive b.u.t.tresses and crowned by an octagonal turret with a conical stone cap and a finial. These b.u.t.tresses have a projection of 8 feet, rise to the top of the aisles, and are surmounted by gables with finials, and at the north corner the gables and the coping of the aisle are crocketed. At the south corner the upper part of the turret has been used as a cell. It is lighted by a small slit and has a wooden floor with a trap in it, from which a ladder once descended to the head of the staircase; and at the west side, in the parapet of the aisle, there is a garderobe seat. It would be interesting to know whether this turret was a prison, or a place of penance, or whether it was occupied by a watchman or sentinel, or, as is not improbable, by one of those recluses who were so often attached to religious communities in the middle ages. The central compartment is flanked by two huge b.u.t.tresses, which have a projection of 10 feet at the bottom and rise to the base of the gable, or rather a little above it, in two stages only, the lower stage reaching a little above the coping of the aisles, and both stages are crowned by gables with finials.[52] The three compartments of the front are on the same plane. Each aisle shows at the end a window of the same pattern with these in the sides, and that in the south aisle has foliage on the capitals of its shafts and is surmounted by a little window of trefoil form which lights a staircase within, for staircases ascend over these windows in the thickness of the wall and run up the angles of the clearstorey.

The great window in the central compartment is one of the finest examples of Geometrical tracery, if not one of the largest windows, in England. It is over 50 feet high, is 25 feet wide, and has seven lights.

Of these the three at either end are comprised under a sub-arch, in the head of which are three cinquefoiled circles, while the central light of the seven is surmounted by an arch, not so high as its neighbours, but impaling upon its acute point a huge circle which fills the head of the window and contains six trefoils radiating from its centre. The arch of this superb window is rather acutely pointed and richly moulded, and has two very slender shafts worked on the stones of either jamb, with foliage on their capitals. Just above the ground below this window there may be observed in the wall one of the many architectural puzzles in which the Cathedral abounds, a half-arch, rising toward the right and filled in with masonry, except at the right side, where is a narrow opening that runs in for a few feet.[53] A string-course continued from the sides of the aisles pa.s.ses below the three windows and round the b.u.t.tresses, which are further relieved at a little height above it by a set-off. The gable has been entirely rebuilt by Sir Gilbert Scott. It is slightly set back, and displays a lofty window of four lights with geometrical tracery not unlike that in the great window below. On either side of this window there is panelling graduated to suit the triangular s.p.a.ce, and the gable is crowned by an elaborate cross and flanked by two pinnacles which resemble those of the flying b.u.t.tresses but are larger and have foliage at the corners instead of heads. The original Decorated gable was probably very much of this pattern. Its height was indicated by the weathering on the tower, and it seems to have had flanking pinnacles and graduated panelling. It had, however, been lowered in pitch and had been altered also by the insertion of a rather debased Perpendicular window.[54] Whatever may be thought, therefore, of Sir Gilbert Scott's action in rebuilding it, he has surely improved the general effect of the front, and it is well that one of the roofs, at any rate, should have been raised to the original pitch. What is most to be regretted, perhaps, is the removal of all traces, if any there were, of the chantry of the Holy Trinity _supra summum altare_, which was situated, as its name implies, in the roof, behind the old gable.

In Archbishop Roger's day the choir was probably as long as it is now, and Walbran (followed by Sir Gilbert Scott) believed that the aisles at that period were returned across the east end. If so, the clearstorey must have been a bay shorter than at present, with a pent roof projecting from below it on the east side to cover the returned portion of the aisle. The rebuilding of the east end in the Decorated period was the first operation in which limestone was employed, but much of the old gritstone has been used again.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE NORTH-WESTERN PORTION OF THE NAVE.

(Junction of XIIth and XVIth Century work.)]

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The name Ripon comes probably from the Latin _ripa_, "a river's bank." Bede uses a form "Inrhypum," which arose perhaps out of _in ripis_. The derivation _Uri pons_ has been generally abandoned.