John Henry Parker

“ The substructure of all the canonical residences running southward from the Deanery, (itself the Abbot’s house of old,) displays a range of vaulting of simple and elegant character, with here and there a window of the period still remaining to testify that the whole was completed, before the tasteless alterations of subsequent centuries destroyed the workmanship which they were as unable to appreciate as to imitate. ”

“ These groups of pinnacles are among the most ornamental features of the style; those at the east end of Howden are among the most celebrated. The buttresses of this style are almost invariably divided into stages with a set-off between each, and sometimes have a succession of niches with crocketed canopies over them. Our eyes are so much accustomed to empty niches in this country that they do not offend us, but an empty niche is in fact an unmeaning thing, a niche was originally intended to contain an image, and the canopy over it was to protect the head of the image. ”

“ It has been already observed that the form of the arch is never a safe guide to the date or style of a building—it depended much more on convenience than anything else; the moldings are the most safe guide: for instance, the arches of the nave of Westminster Abbey are of the same form as those of the choir and transepts, yet they were built by Sir Richard Whittington, (better known by the story of his cat) , in the fifteenth century, and their moldings belong distinctly to that period. In plain parish churches the arches are frequently without moldings, merely recessed and chamfered ”

“ The natural use and the profusion of moldings in the English buildings of the thirteenth century is considered as one of the proofs of the English origin of the Gothic style. The French imitated it rapidly, but in a cheaper manner, and their buildings are, on the whole, not quite equal to ours, that is, taking into account both exterior and interior. The profuse suites of moldings so common in English doorways and arches, are almost unknown in France: some things they developed more rapidly than we did, but in the moldings they were behind us. ”

“ Rickman:—
“The General Appearance of Decorated buildings is at once simple and magnificent; simple from the small number of parts, and magnificent from the size of the windows, and the easy flow of the lines of tracery. In the interior of large buildings we find great breadth, and an enlargement of the clere-story windows, with a corresponding diminution of the triforium, which is now rather a part of the clere-storey opening than a distinct member of the division. The roofing, from the increased richness of the groining, becomes an object of more attention. ”

“ Nothing can well exceed the richness and beauty of the Perpendicular woodwork, and it is easy to imagine that a church of the twelfth or thirteenth century has been newly furnished in the fifteenth or sixteenth. ”

“ The rapidity with which the change of style took place has been pointed out, and the complete character of the change, which was developed as fully in some of the earliest buildings of the new style as in the latest. New ideas and a new life seem to have been given to architecture, and the builders appear to have revelled in it even to exuberance and excess, and it was necessary afterwards, in some degree, to soften down and subdue it. ”

“ The whole of Abbot Litlington’s work is in a style of transition between the Decorated and Perpendicular period; it is almost impossible to say to which of these received styles the moldings and details can be referred. As the divisions of the styles of Gothic Architecture are entirely arbitrary, arranged for general convenience, and for the use of beginners in the study, it is perfectly natural that this sort of mixture should take place for a certain period between each of the great changes. ”

“ Early English Buildings are readily distinguished from those of the Norman period by their comparative lightness, their long, narrow, lancet-shaped, pointed windows, their boldly projecting buttresses and pinnacles, and the acute pitch of the roof. Internally, we have pointed arches supported on slender and lofty pillars, which are frequently formed of a number of shafts connected at intervals by bands. ”

“ We have no instance of real Flamboyant work in this country, although forms of tracery approaching to it are not uncommon; the moldings are never of the true Flamboyant character, which is quite distinct both from the Decorated and the Perpendicular; it coincided in time with the latter, and therefore does not properly belong to our present subject.
The arch is sometimes cinquefoiled, and ornamented with crockets and bunches of foliage for finials, and with pinnacles also, as in Beverley Minster, where this arch is that of a canopy over a tomb, between two tall piers of a lofty arch. ”

“ Modern builders have greatly neglected this precaution, and the wind blowing over a high-pitched roof naturally descends on the other side, and carries the smoke down the chimney, instead of letting it float away freely with the wind.
No one who has seen the fine brick buildings of the time of Henry the Seventh can despise them. Eton College is almost entirely built of brick, excepting the chapel, which is faced with stone. In many districts the difference of expense between brick and stone is enormous. ”

“ Norman Central Towers are very low and massive, seldom rising more than a square above the roof, sometimes not so much, the ridge of the original roof, as shewn by the weather-table on the face of the tower, being only just below the parapet. ”

“ We find in early Norman work that the chisel was very little used; most of the ornaments are such as could be readily worked with the axe, and whatever sculpture there is appears to have been executed afterwards, for it was a general practice to execute sculpture after the stones were placed, as is evident in the early work at Westminster: some of the capitals in the crypt of Canterbury are only half finished to{37} this day, the work of carving having probably gone on until it was stopped by the great fire in 1174. If the sculpture is early it is very rude, and the work is shallow. ”

“ In the later period they are more richly molded than in the early part of the style: the chancel-arch especially is very much enriched; and the western side, facing the spectator when looking towards the altar, is generally much more ornamented than the eastern side. The chancel-arch at Iffley is one of the richest and best examples: where there is a central tower, as in that instance, both the tower-arches across the church are usually ornamented in the same manner; the side-arches, where there are transepts, are frequently much plainer, and often pointed. ”

“ The Pillars are of various forms—round or octagonal in small and plain churches, and these not unfrequently alternate; in richer work they are usually clustered; but the pillar most characteristic of the style is the one with detached shafts, which are generally of Purbeck marble, frequently very long and slender, and only connected with the central shaft by the capital and base, with or without one or two bands at intervals. ”

“ The tracery of the windows looks at first sight like Decorated, but on looking more closely the introduction of Perpendicular features is very evident. The west doorway has the segmental arch common in Decorated work; over this is the usual square label of the Perpendicular, and under the arch is Perpendicular panelling over the heads of the two doors: the same curious mixture is observable in the moldings, and in all the details. This example is the more valuable from the circumstance that it was Bishop Edington who commenced the alteration of Winchester Cathedral into the Perpendicular style ”

“ The Piscinas, or water-drains, and niches, or tabernacles for images, are often very rich, with canopies and open tracery. These objects commonly shew the chief beauties of this style; they are always on the south side of the altar, the locker or ambry for keeping the chalice, &c., is usually on the north side. The pediment, or straight-sided canopy, is much used in this style over doors, sedilia, piscinas, and monuments. ”

“ The frequent use of figures, simply as corbels between the windows of the clere-storey to carry the roof, is a good characteristic of the late Perpendicular style; they are generally of the time of Henry the Seventh or Eighth, as at Rushden, Northants. The figure used is generally that of an angel, and each angel is sometimes represented as carrying a different musical instrument, so as to make up a heavenly choir. ”

“ But the most singular part is the chapel, which is totally different in style from the rest of the buildings; the windows have good Perpendicular tracery and moldings, though of rather late character, and there is little to distinguish it from a pure Perpendicular building, except the upper moldings of the buttresses, In the east window, however, there is a singularity in the subordination of the tracery, which would not have occurred in the best period of Perpendicular. The two mullions of the centre light are carried through the head and on each side in the sub-arches. ”

“ In many of the earlier examples the square profile of the recessed Norman arch is retained, and the moldings are cut chiefly on the angles; but as the style advances this squareness is lost, and the moldings appear to be cut on a chamfer, or sloping surface, as at Little Addington and Denford, Northants, and none of the plain square masonry remains, the whole being worked up into rich suites of moldings, separated only by deep hollows. In the later examples a peculiar molding called the roll [D] molding, is used ”

“ Rich Doorways form one of the most important features of late Norman work. The examples given from Cuddesdon and Middleton Stoney are good ordinary specimens, such as may be found in scores of parish churches. They are generally round-headed, very deeply recessed, and frequently have shafts in the jambs. The tympanum is frequently filled with rich sculpture, which becomes deeper and better executed as the style advances. ”

“ Square-headed, segmental, and other flat-arched windows, are frequent in this style. In rich churches there is sometimes a double plane of tracery, the one glazed, the other not. In the choir of York the inner one is glazed. The east window of the nave of Chipping-Norton Church, Oxfordshire, over the chancel-arch, is a fine specimen of this kind of window: in this instance the outer plane is glazed.{199}
The Doorways are frequently very rich, but have generally one prevailing form, which is a depressed arch within a square frame, and over this a label. ”

“ Experience shews that a child who has seen many examples, and has had the peculiar features of each style explained, does understand and remember them in a manner that appears astonishing to older people, and accurate representations of buildings of each period may be equally well understood and remembered. ”

“ A large pier is sometimes a cluster{154} of six shafts, each with its separate capital, some of which have foliage under a molded abacus, as at Beverley (3) , others a series of moldings only. More frequently a pier consists of four shafts only, with a series of moldings for the capital, the upper or abacus being usually the roll-molding. Sometimes the hollows are rather deep, though not so deep as in the Early English, as at Beverley and Stanwick. ”

“ The Apse has been already mentioned as a characteristic of the Norman style. In England it is more frequently used in early than in late work, and is found at the east ends of the chancel and its aisles, and on the east side of the transepts; being, in fact, the places for altars, which were afterwards continued in the same situations, but either merely under windows in a flat wall, or under arched recesses which frequently remain in the transept wall, and are sometimes erroneously described as doorways.{69}
Cassington, Oxon. ”

“ What is thus understood is also easily remembered; we can always remember what we have seen, much better than what we have only heard or read about; an accurate representation of each object is better than many pages of description, or of essays about it. ”

“ Hugh’s choir at Lincoln, beforementioned as the earliest example of this style. There is a very fine example of a compound flying buttress at Westminster Abbey, which supports the vaults of the choir, the triforium, and the aisles, and carries the thrust of the whole over the cloister to the ground. But they did not become common until after this period. There is a marked difference between the flying buttresses of English buildings and those of French work of the same time; the English are far more elegant ”

“ It is a mistake to suppose that the Normans brought this style with them “ready cut and dried,” it began in Normandy and in England simultaneously; the two great abbey churches at Caen were both built after the Conquest, and with English money, and they are not at all in advance of similar buildings in England; both had originally wooden roofs and ceilings only, the stone vaults were not put on until a century after they were built; we have no stone vaults over a space of 20 ft. ”

“ The general characteristic features of each period are the same, although the provincial character sometimes seems to preponderate; the character of each century, at all events, is the same all over Europe, and may also be easily remembered, and as a matter of fact is never forgotten. ”

“ Rickman was the first to reduce chaos into order, and to shew that the age of a building can be ascertained by the construction and the details, on the principle of comparison with well-known dated examples, and he should always have the credit of being the first to establish this. ”

“ Indeed, the use of square and angular forms is one of the characteristics of the style; we have square panels, square foliage, square crockets and finials, square forms in the windows,—caused by the introduction of so many transoms,—and an approach to squareness in the depressed and low pitch of the roofs in late examples.{209}
Doorway, Fotheringhay, Northants, A.D. 1435.
It is frequently said that it is not easy to distinguish the moldings of the Perpendicular style from those of the earlier styles, but this is in general because people do not pay attention to them. ”

“ The Moldings of this style differ from the Early English chiefly in having the rounds and hollows not so deeply cut, and more generally filleted: the roll-molding, and the quarter round, are very much used; the abacus of the capital is in general a roll or filleted round, and the base is formed of round moldings without the deep hollow: as the style advances, the moldings become, generally, more shallow and feeble. ”

“ The records of this cathedral clearly prove that it was the regular practice of the chapter to keep a gang of workmen in their pay as part of the establishment; the number varied from twenty to fifty, and the same families were usually continued generation after generation: to their continued labour, always doing something every year, we are indebted for the whole of that glorious fabric. ”

“ Gervase and William of Malmesbury have furnished us, as we have seen, with a clue by which to distinguish the work of the early Norman period from that of a later age, namely, wide-jointed masonry, and shallow sculpture executed chiefly with the axe instead of the chisel. The best and safest test is the wide-jointed masonry, where it is found ”

“ In this church, the central tower is not square, the nave and choir being wider than the transepts, and consequently the east and west arches are round-headed, while the north and south are pointed: this would not in itself be any proof of transition, but the whole character of the work is late, though very rich and good, and the clerestory windows of the nave are pointed without any necessity for it, which is then a mark of transition.{79}
Westminster Abbey. ”