Chester Cathedral

“ The interior of the Cathedral excites a general feeling of admiration, which the exterior fails to realize.
The Church of St. Oswald’s,
as already mentioned, forms the south transept of the choir of Chester Cathedral. After the introduction of regular monks into the monastery of St. Werburgh, anciently dedicated to the Holy Trinity and St. Oswald, the name of this patron saint was retained by that part of the conventual church which was set apart for the uses of the inhabitants of the parish, within which the monastery was placed. ”

“ CHESTER CATHEDRAL, WEST FRONT
mustiness in the air which seems to haunt these places as the very climate of Episcopacy, you may grow to feel that they are less the empty shells of a departed faith than the abodes of a faith which may still affirm a presence and awaken echoes. Catholicism has gone, but Anglicanism has the next best music. So at least it seemed to me, a Sunday or two since, as I sat in the choir at Chester awaiting a discourse from Canon Kingsley. ”

“ It was also a stronghold of Saxons and Danes. From the Norman Conquest until the{216} reign of Henry III. the Earls of Chester had their own courts and parliaments at Chester. Since Henry III. bestowed the title of Earl of Chester upon his oldest son, the heir to the throne has always held the earldom. The old church did not become a cathedral until 1541.
Chester Cathedral, being built of soft red sandstone, suffered from the weather. Restoration was a necessity. Consequently the exterior is almost exclusively of the Nineteenth Century. ”

“ The first effect of colour left on my eyes the impression of sunset-red, warm as copper beeches. The place seemed to be lit with fading firelight, and I wondered at the soft glow everywhere, until I realized that the big buildings—the Cathedral, the great houses and the old city wall—were all made of rosy sandstone.
You can't imagine how a large town which has lived as long as Chester has, and gone on growing, could have contrived to remain so satisfyingly beautiful, or keep such an air of old-time completeness. ”

“ One of the most interesting features of Chester Cathedral is, that it gives us specimens of every style of architecture, except, indeed, the Saxon. You have Norman work in the remains of S. Anselm’s Church and buildings; exquisite examples of Early English in the Lady Chapel and Chapter House; Decorated and Perpendicular of every period in the Choir, Nave, and great South Transept; and Jacobean in the Consistory Court and in some minor details. It is of the latter that we are about to treat. ”

“ Its height within, from floor to the lofty dome lighted by these exquisite windows is from sixty to one hundred feet. The Church of St. John the Baptist rivals the Cathedral in antiquity, but it is now a picturesque ruin covered with moss and ivy.
Chester itself contains many antiquities that are to be found nowhere else in the world. The houses, dating back to 1500, or even earlier, are of every degree of shade and color, with little windows with diamond-shaped panes, and gable ends facing the streets whose sidewalks are on a level with the second stories. ”

“ He resided in Chester with his brother William from 1861 to 1865, and interested himself in the preservation of the city's ancient buildings. In 1868 he read before the Liverpool Architectural Society a paper opposing the proposed restoration of Chester Cathedral, and in 1871 another paper 'On so-called Restorations of our Cathedral and Abbey Churches.' The latter aroused a strong feeling on the subject of restorations, and led, after much discussion in the press, to the formation of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. ”

“ During the summer of 1854, the Hawthorne family made a number of unimportant expeditions, visiting mediaeval abbeys and ruinous castles,—especially one to Chester and Eton Hall, which was not quite worth the fees they paid to the janitors. An ancient walled city is much of a novelty to an American for the first time, but, having seen one, you have seen them all, and Chester Cathedral does not stand high in English architecture. ”

“ Almost all the old churches in England suffer exceedingly either from the defect of the stone of which they are built or the action of the atmosphere upon it: they look honeycombed, worm-eaten; their tracery is obliterated, their mullions are wasted as if by wear and tear. The interiors, protected from the weather, fare best, but even the cloisters, which are open on one side, are often in a ruinous condition, and the stone peels and crumbles under the touch like rusty iron. Chester Cathedral is an extreme instance: its dilapidation amounts to disfigurement. ”

“ Gail told him reverently. “It is still in the hearts of the people, as it will always be; but they have nowhere to gather together and worship.”
Daddy Manning laughed as he detected that bit of sarcasm.
“According to that we are wasting our new cathedral.”
“Absolutely!” and it struck the rector with pain that Gail had never looked more beautiful than now, with her cheeks flushed and her brown eyes snapping with indignation. “Your cathedral will be a monument, built out of the profits wrung from squalor, to the vanity of your congregation. ”

“ In the north-east angle of the square is the Deanery, built on the site where once stood an old Gothic structure, called St. Thomas’s Chapel. Returning into Northgate-street, the next narrow avenue on the left gives us a fine view of the west transept of the Cathedral, with its beautiful window, enriched with elegant tracery. A few paces below we arrive at
The Music Hall, formerly The Theatre Royal.
The citizens of Chester appear to have been early distinguished for a love of theatricals. ”

“ Americans know Chester better than most other old towns in England, because they so frequently stop there awhile on their way from Liverpool to London. It has a mouldy old cathedral, an old wall, partly Roman, strange old houses with overhanging upper floors, which make sheltered sidewalks and dark basements. ”

“ John Bird Sumner, bishop of Chester, and in 1830 chancellor of the diocese. His influence rapidly grew, and Charles Simeon of Cambridge is reported to have said, ‘The great diocese of Chester enjoys a sort of double episcopacy in the cordial coadjutorship of the chancellor with the bishop of the see.’ On 8 Aug. 1844 he was named an honorary canon of the cathedral. In Chester he awakened a lively interest in its historical remains and in the restoration of the cathedral. ”

“ I am also ready to confess, on behalf of my congregation and vestry, that their leading motive was vanity!”
“You have no authority to speak for me,” interrupted Chisholm, his mutton chops now red.
“Splendour is no longer the exclusive property of religion,” resumed the rector, paying no attention to the interruption. “It has lost the greater part of its effectiveness because splendour has become a mere adjunct to the daily luxury of our civilisation. The new cathedral would be only a surrounding in keeping with the gilded boudoirs from which my lady parishioners step to come to worship ”

“ It appears that the dedication of this church was altered, perhaps in the reign of Athelstan, from St. Peter and St Paul to St Werburgh and St Oswald, St Werburgh being a niece of St Etheldreda of Ely. In 1093 Hugh Lupus, earl of Chester, richly endowed the foundation as a Benedictine monastery. The bishops of Mercia had apparently a seat at Chester, but the city had ceased to be episcopal, until in 1075 Peter, bishop of Lichfield, removed his seat thence to Chester, having for his cathedral the collegiate church of St John. ”

“ The bishoprick and its [63] church may be comparatively modern institutions, and they may be altogether eclipsed by some other institution more ancient in date of foundation, perhaps more ancient in its actual fabric. Thus at Oxford the cathedral church is well-nigh lost among the buildings of the University and its greatest college. At Chester its rank may be disputed by the majestic fragments of the older minster of Saint John. At Bristol the cathedral church, even when restored to its old proportions, will still have at least an equal rival in the stateliest parish church in England. ”

“ The seat of the see, however, was quickly removed again to Coventry (1102) , but Cheshire continued subject to Lichfield until in 1541 Chester was erected into a bishopric by Henry VIII., the church of the dissolved abbey of St Werburgh becoming the cathedral. The diocese covers nearly the whole of Cheshire, with very small portions of Lancashire and Staffordshire. The cathedral does not rank among the most splendid English churches, but possesses certain details of the highest interest, and gains in beauty from the tones of its red sandstone walls and the picturesque close in which it stands. ”

“ Plautus, in the 3rd act of his Mostella, describes both their station and use. The shops beneath the rows were the Cryptæ and Apothecæ, magazines for the various necessaries of the owners of the houses.”
Ormerod says that some of these crypts exhibit specimens of vaulting equal to the cloisters of our Cathedral.
Camden, in describing Chester, says, “The houses are very fair built, and along the chief streets are galleries or walking places they call rows, having shops on both sides, through which a man may walk dry from one end to the other.” ”

“ There is stillness and space—grassy, oak-studded space—at Eaton Hall, where the Marquis of Westminster dwells (or I believe can afford to humour his notion of not dwelling) , but there is a crowd and a hubbub in Chester. Wherever you go the population has overflowed. You stroll on the walls at eventide and you hardly find elbow-room. You haunt the cathedral shades and a dozen sauntering mortals temper your solitude. You glance up an alley or side street and discover populous windows and doorsteps. You roll along country roads and find countless humble pedestrians dotting the green waysides. ”

“ Allison began to feel the same respect for Gail’s mental processes which he would for a man’s, though, when he looked at her with this thought in mind, she was so thoroughly feminine that she puzzled him more than ever.
“Market Square Church has an ambition worthy of its vestry,” he informed her, bringing his runabout to rest, with a swift glide, just an accurate three inches behind the taxi in front of them. “When it has fifty million dollars, it proposes to start building the most magnificent cathedral on American soil.” ”

“ No decent man would conduct the business we do, for the reason that it would soil his soul as a gentleman; and it is a shameful thing that a gentleman should have finer ethics than a Christian church! In the beginning, I was a coward about this matter! It was because I wished to be rid of our responsibility in Vedder Court that I first urged the conversion of that property into a cathedral. We can not rid ourselves of the responsibility of Vedder Court! If it were possible for a church to be sent to hell, Market Square Church would be eternally damned if it took this added guilt upon it! ”

“ If I were the dictator of this wonderful city of achievement, I would decree that cathedral never to be built, and Vedder Court to be utterly destroyed!”
“It is perhaps just as well that you are not the dictator of the city.” The young Reverend Smith Boyd gazed down at her from his six feet of serious purpose, 97with all his previous disapproval intensified. “The history of Market Square Church is rich with instances of its usefulness in both the spiritual and the material world, with evidence of its power for good, with justification for its existence, with reason for its acts. ”

“ Some of the bases of the pillars once supporting the roof of the south walk are still visible on the Preese, or Cloister Green.
Returning to the north walk, we pass thence, under a richly ornamented arch, into another apartment on the right hand, now and for three centuries past occupied as the Grammar School of the Cathedral. Few portions of the conventual buildings are so little known to visitors as the one we are now entering,—few will so amply repay their inspection as will this, the ancient Refectory of this once famous Monastery. Time was,
And a gay time it was then, O! ”

“ The doorway and wall may have been built in the sixteenth century, when the unfinished south-west tower was projected and commenced, but the superincumbent [p. 101] balustrade is at any rate later, and bears the date 1636, and on a small shield the initials “J. B.”—clear indication that it was erected by John Bridgman, who was Bishop of Chester from 1619 to 1650. It is through this door that the Consistory Court, which is, in fact, the basement of the unfinished tower, is reached. Comparatively few visitors to the Cathedral ever see this portion of it. ”

“ Interested in her own analysis, and perfectly placid because, after all, Gail had refused him, she did not notice that Gail, now brushing her hair, stopped in the middle of a downward stroke, and then fell to brushing furiously. “Moreover, the young man is highly ambitious,” went on Aunt Helen. “The movement for the magnificent new cathedral had lagged 226for years before he came; but he had not been here twelve months before he had the entire congregation ambitious to build the most magnificent cathedral the world has ever seen. ”

“ Northumbres destroyed this cyte but Elfleda Lady of Mercia bylded it again and made it mouch more."
This is what was written of Chester, more than six hundred years ago, by one Ranulph Higden, a Chester Abbey monk,—him who wrote those old miracle plays, except for which we very like had never had such a thing as a play at all, and William Shakspeare had turned out no better than many another Stratford man.
All good Americans who reach England go to Chester. They go to see the cathedral, and to buy old Queen Anne furniture. ”