W. D. Sweeting

“ The Octagon.—Few visitors will perhaps be disposed to examine any of the objects of interest in the cathedral before an inspection of the beauties of this magnificent erection, the first sight of which, from one of the smaller arches towards the aisles, is a thing never to be forgotten. There is not one of the many able artists and architects who have written about the octagon that has not spoken of it as being without rival in the whole world ”

“ Certainly nowhere in England, possibly nowhere in the world, is there to be seen so fine a porch. "Perhaps the most gorgeous porch of this style in existence is the Galilee at the west end of Ely Cathedral: this magnificent specimen of the Early English style must be seen to be duly appreciated; it combines the most elegant general forms with the richest detail; a very happy effect is produced by the double arcade on each side, one in front of the other with detached shafts, not opposite but alternate."8 Each side, externally, is covered with lancet arcading in four tiers. ”

“ We cannot suppose that a new conception in architectural design sprang into existence simultaneously in several different centres. There must have been a beginning in some one place. The idea would spread in the neighbourhood and in buildings where the particular abbey or cathedral had property or influence, and would by degrees be carried to other religious houses, and so become generally adopted, and mark a distinct change in style. ”

“ Besides the lady-chapel and octagon, he must have designed the singularly beautiful bays of the presbytery between the octagon and Northwold's work. The exquisite way in which the main characteristics of the Early English work are adapted to the Decorated style demands our highest admiration. The arrangement of the three western bays on each side is exactly like Northwold's work, while the additional grace and beauty of ornamentation mark the advance in taste that distinguished the Decorated period. Bishop Hotham undertook the whole expense of rebuilding this portion of the cathedral. ”

“ Though the minster had become a cathedral when the bishopric was instituted, yet the prior and convent were always custodians of the fabric, and apparently supreme therein; and there was nothing strictly corresponding to a capitular body. A memory of the fact that the bishop was in place of the abbot remains to this day in the position of the bishop's seat in the choir. There is no throne, properly so called. The bishop occupies what is in most cathedrals the dean's seat—on the south of the entrance at the screen. ”

“ The mitred figure of the bishop is on an altar-tomb beneath a richly groined roof, and a space is left at the feet, where a priest might stand to pray for the soul of the deceased prelate.9 There are grand canopies on the sides, with crockets and coloured shields bearing emblems of the Crucifixion, the arms of the See of Ely and of S. Asaph, where Bishop Redman was at first; but the arms of the See of Exeter, from which diocese he came to Ely, as now used, are not to be seen. Above the roof is fine open screen-work, and against the adjoining piers, east and west, are large canopied niches. ”

“ Most of the monumental tablets which once disfigured the arcade below the windows have been happily removed into the vestibule. The arches and canopies at the east end are arranged differently from those on the sides. In the roof, which reminds us of the contemporary roof in the choir, are some carved bosses, not large, but singularly good. ”

“ The roof has fan tracery with a massive pendant. A singular little chantry is at the north, access to which is through a door at the foot of the bishop's tomb. In a small window here is a little contemporary stained glass. The bishop's rebus—a cock on a globe—repeatedly occurs in the stone-work. The ornamentation strikes the spectator as being excessive and too profuse. No figures have been replaced in the niches.
In the retro-choir a mosaic slab over the remains of Bishop Allen (d. 1845) has a curious history. ”

“ From the death of Bishop Barnet in 1373 to the suppression of the monasteries no Bishop of Ely is credited with having done anything towards the fabric of the cathedral except Bishop Gray (1454-1478) . Some of them were at variance with the prior and convent, and would be little inclined to spend money on the church. Those that had a taste for architecture displayed it in beautifying their palaces or manor-houses, or upon buildings connected with the universities or other places in which they had private interest. ”

“ There is not the least tendency towards any features of the Perpendicular style. Without reckoning tombs and chapels, there is no structural work of distinct Perpendicular character to be seen at Ely Cathedral, except some remains of the cloisters, and the windows in the nave aisles and clerestory, and those in the upper parts of the great transept, and the large supporting arches which have been inserted beneath the Norman arches of the west tower. The triforium walls in the nave were raised in the fifteenth century, as those in the presbytery had 28been raised in the fourteenth. ”

“ DOORWAY OF THE GALILEE.
The interior of the porch is even more beautiful; the 46profusion of ornamentation on the inner doorway and the exceeding gracefulness of the double arcades in the sides are quite unsurpassed. Both doorways are divided by a shaft, and both have open tracery of exceptional beauty above.
Bishop Eustace, to whom this porch is attributed, died in 1215. It is not surprising to learn that many careful students of English architecture have found a difficulty in believing that work of such consummate grace and perfection of detail can belong to so early a date. ”

“ But we find no churches dedicated to any of the four in the isle except those previously named as dedicated to S. Etheldreda, the cathedral, Histon, and a chapel at Swaffham Prior. Minster Church, in Kent, is dedicated to Saints Mary and Sexburga. In a tenth-century will of the widowed queen of Edmund I. we read: "I give to S. Peter's, and to S. Ætheldryth, and to S. Wihtburh, and to S. Sexburh, and to S. Eormenhild at Ely where my lord's body rests, the three lands which we both promised to God and His saint."4 There were no doubt side-altars erected in honour of one or more of the four. ”

“ At the north end are two large windows of good Perpendicular character; at the south is a single window of seven lights, of very singular design. At the ends of the transepts are two original galleries, level with the triforium, supported on round-headed arches. On the north are five arches, not of equal height, the two most lofty of which reach nearly to the triforium level. On the south are six much lower arches, and above them is a blank arcade of intersecting arches. In the floor of the south transept are laid some very remarkable ancient tiles. ”

“ No doubt the character of the architecture is not inconsistent with the theory that the northern part may have been built or finished by Bishop Eustace, soon after he was appointed, in intentional imitation of the pronounced Norman work adjacent. Canon Stewart also points out that Bishop Eustace is known to have rebuilt S. Mary's Church, where the rough masonry and plain lancets are wholly unlike the beautiful work in the west porch. And he adds: "It is evident that Eustace had nothing to do with the erection of any part of the present cathedral. ”

“ After remaining about a year at Coldingham, the queen found it necessary to move away. The king began to regret the permission he had given her, and, following the advice of some of his courtiers, made his way to the religious house where Etheldreda was settled, with the intention of forcibly compelling her return to his Court. His intention having become known to the abbess, she recommended the queen to escape at once to her own territory, the Isle of Ely. The queen immediately followed this advice. Egfrid arrived at Coldingham very soon after her departure, and set off in pursuit. ”

“ The four great arches rise to the full height of the roof; that to the east, indeed, is higher than the vaulted roof of the choir and presbytery, the intervening space being occupied with tracery of wood-work on painted boards, the Saviour on the Cross being painted in the middle. The wooden vaulting of the octagon springs from capitals on the same level as those of the great arches. The four small arches to the aisles are of course no higher than the roofs of the aisles: above these, on each side, are three figures of apostles, under canopies with crockets. ”

“ King Edward III. and Queen Philippa are at the north-east, Bishop Hotham and Prior Crauden at the south-east, Walsingham and his master mason (so it is believed) at the north-west; those to the south-west are mere grotesques. Above the seated figures on each side is a window of four broad lights, filled with stained glass. The eight chief vaulting shafts rise from the ground as slight triple shafts; they support, a little above the spring of the side arches, large corbels, which form bases for exquisitely designed niches, and through these spring more shafts reaching to the vault. ”

“ It should be stated that the greatest encouragement to this form of decoration was given by Canon E. B. Sparke, who secured, partly by his influence and persuasion, and largely by his own munificence, the insertion of so many windows. It is true that in the first instance not a few were prepared in too great a hurry, and some of those first placed in the restored cathedral (as those in the octagon) have been at a later time condemned as being deficient in harmony of colouring and in artistic design ”

“ For upwards of six years the affairs of the monastery were administered by Godfrey, one of the monks. He was an able and efficient administrator. In his time the king sent a number of knights and gentlemen to live at Ely, and he supported them out of the revenues of the house. The names and armorial bearings of these pensioners are preserved in a curious painting called the "Tabula Eliensis," now in the palace. This is a copy, as it is said, of one formerly in the refectory. It cannot be earlier than the fifteenth century. ”

“ The choir is, as would be expected, richer in detail as well as more elaborate in design; and it would be difficult to find in England anything to surpass the tracery of the clerestory windows and triforium arches, the beautiful cusped inner arches of the clerestory range, the open parapets at the base of the two stages, or the long corbels, covered with foliage, that support the vaulting shafts. ”

“ Introduction to Farren's "Cathedral Cities of Ely and Norwich."
[3] Population of Ely, 1891, was 6,646; of Wells, 5,899.
[4] Ely is almost universally called a city, upon the supposition that the mere fact of its having a cathedral constitutes the town a city. But since the Norman Conquest the dignity of a city has always been conferred by grant, and no such grant is known to have been made to Ely.
[5] An American visitor whom the writer was once conducting over Peterborough Cathedral observed, "This is a very large church for so small a place." ”

“ The only one of the above works that calls for special notice is the restoration of the octagon and lantern. In a statement circulated by the dean and chapter in 1853 it was declared that "of all works which remain to be undertaken, the most considerable and the most important is the restoration of the lantern, including the decoration of the vault, the substitution of windows of an appropriate character for those which now disfigure it so seriously, and the addition of the outer corona of turrets and pinnacles as originally designed by Alan de Walsingham." ”

“ The Transepts.—The architectural student will find the transepts of the greatest interest; as in them is to be seen the earliest work in the cathedral. They are similar in general character to those at Winchester, which were built by Abbot Simeon's brother. The transepts at Winchester were ready for consecration in 1093, and this was seven years before Simeon came to Ely. The triforium is probably only in part Simeon's work; and the clerestory was almost certainly added by his successor. Both transepts have aisles, but in the south transept the western aisle is walled off. ”

“ This work of Bishop Northwold completed the plan of the cathedral as it now stands. The lady-chapel was indeed built afterwards, but that is to all intents and purposes a separate building. Nor is there any later thirteenth-century work in the church itself. The building operations of the second half of the century were confined to the domestic part of the monastery. As these were doubtless carried out by the convent from its own resources, there is little notice to be found of them in the records of the see. ”

“ The pope required him to dedicate his eldest son to the religious life in some monastery which he was liberally to endow, and to bestow largely of his substance to the relief of the poor. His son Edelmor was accordingly devoted to the service of God at Ely, and very large estates were assigned by Leofwin to the monastery. He further improved the church, rebuilding and enlarging the south aisle, and joining it to the rest of the building ”

“ Those that were once conventual churches had no deans or canons till Henry VIII. An easy way of identifying cathedrals of the old foundation is this: if the non-resident canons have the title of prebendaries, they are members of a cathedral of the old foundation. The modern dignity of honorary canon was created in order that all other cathedrals might have a body of clergy corresponding to the prebendaries of the ancient cathedrals.
[2] He is called, in Bishop Stubbs' "Registrum Sacrum Anglicanum," Herve le Breton.
[3] Quoted by Bentham, p. 187. ”

“ There is no monumental memorial in the nave. But the large slab of marble in the centre, just in front of the position of the old rood-loft, which has been already referred to as traditionally marking the grave of Alan de Walsingham, should be noticed.
Under the four arches of the presbytery on the north, between the stalls and the altar, are monuments of great importance. First we see that of Bishop Redman (d. 1505) , a very fine specimen of enriched Perpendicular work. ”