Salisbury Cathedral

“ How delightfully-reviving the communion with the purity of Nature, after our thoughts have been saddened by a contemplation of the self-sought miseries of her children. We saunter quietly along under the fine trees that overhang our path, loiter awhile to survey an old moated house, and then pass on by a winding path through mead and lane to Salisbury. Before us is the bright, busy little city, and above it is upreared the remarkable feature that has made its reputation world-wide, the glorious spire of its Cathedral. ”

“ A glance from a window discloses an enchanting view: in the distance, past the cedars, rises the spire of Salisbury Cathedral, one of the most peaceful and aspiring in England. All parts—scenery, buildings, rich possessions, historic heritages—minister to parts. Romantic imagination is stirred. It is beautiful, beautiful beyond anything America can show. ”

“ King Alfred fortified it, and in the eleventh century it was made a bishop's see. In 1217, however, Bishop Poore removed two miles away, and there established what is now Salisbury Cathedral, and so the city itself. As a matter of course, Sarum declined. The people followed the bishop, and what was once a place of note became almost extinct. Only one house remains on the grounds, but there are yet traces of the walls, cathedral, and castle. A more complete ruin is not to be found elsewhere in Great Britain, and a strange enchantment hovers about the scene. ”

“ Salisbury Cathedral, my dear Jonas,’ said Mr Pecksniff; the mention of the portfolios and his anxiety to display himself to advantage, suggesting his usual phraseology in that regard, ‘is an edifice replete with venerable associations, and strikingly suggestive of the loftiest emotions. It is here we contemplate the work of bygone ages. It is here we listen to the swelling organ, as we stroll through the reverberating aisles. ”

“ After breakfasting at Winchester the following morning, an early train carried the party to the town of Salisbury, there to see the fairest of the English cathedrals,—that is, in Mrs. Pitt’s opinion, of course.
To say that Salisbury Cathedral stands in the center of a velvet-like lawn, to mention the fact that a little stream flows musically by, to add [Pg 233] that the towers and lines of the building itself are wonderfully graceful, is attempting to describe things as they exist, but wholly inadequate in the impression which it gives to the reader. ”

“ There is here in Salisbury the usual familiar society of a cathedral close—the Canon in residence and the other inhabitants meeting and going in and out of each others’ houses at all hours. With Canon Douglas Gordon I have been to the Palace, where we found the Bishop in his garden, which is quite lovely, the rich green and brilliant flowers sweeping up into and mingling with the grey arcades and rich chapels of the cathedral; and from all points the tall heaven-soaring spire is sublime, especially in the purple shadows of evening, with birds circling ceaselessly round it. ”

“ In passing from the earlier to the later church, we pass from Transitional Norman to a pure example of Early English style, the details of which closely remind us of Salisbury Cathedral. That cathedral, which was not finished till 1258, was begun in 1220, and the foundations of the Temple choir cannot have been laid very long after this. Matthew Paris (died 1259) tells us that "the noble church of the New Temple, of a construction worthy to be looked at," was consecrated on Ascension Day, 1240, in the presence of Henry III. and many great men of the realm. ”

“ Early next morning, before starting on the road, we paid a visit to the grand parish church of the town, whose splendid tower is one of the finest in the kingdom, besides being one of the earliest, ranking, according to some architectural authorities, second only to that of Salisbury Cathedral. But what interested us most in this glorious old church, with its broad aisles and general feeling of spaciousness, was its library of chained books of rare medieval works; this is contained in a large parvise chamber over the south porch. ”

“ On the greenest of green grass, thousands of sheep and many cows are grazing, but no houses are in sight. A rare beauty exists everywhere, and many evidences of civilization. Salisbury is in our rear. Above all we see the cathedral tower and spire, distinct in outline, like a faithful sentinel standing there and guarding us.
We alight from our team, hitch the horse by the roadside, and turn to our left into a path parallel with the main road, and running a short distance across the field. ”

“ It is hard to find a mediæval church of any importance in England that is not only upon the self-same site, but more often in part upon the actual foundation of an earlier edifice. Consistency is the especial character of Salisbury, and now, owing to Wyatt's iconoclastic destruction of the two later chapels at its east end, we have in Salisbury "the most typical English cathedral," which is also our most complete example of Early English. ”

“ Many consecration crosses of beautiful design are to be found on the building marking the spots touched by the oil of unction at the dedication of the edifice. (See initial letter, page 1.)
The cathedral is built of freestone from the Chilmark quarries twelve miles distant, with a lavish use of Purbeck marble in its interior. The grey colour of the leaden roofs and the pure unstained tone of its walls, impart a quasi-modern aspect to it, which, no matter how little justified by facts, always presents Salisbury to one's mind, as a late addition to the superb array of English churches ”

“ In sight of Salisbury Cathedral, and but two miles away, is Bemerton, an ideal spot, combining those qualities that go to make up one of the best specimens of a rural hamlet of Old England,—clean roads, well built walls, highly cultivated land, beautiful trees, grounds with no evidences of poverty or want. A spot that does not appear to have been at all interfered with by any outside trouble, is this little municipality; and how fit a place for "Holy George Herbert" to live and die in. ”

“ It is interesting to note that not only is Salisbury the most complete example of its period in this country, but is also the first important building carried out entirely in the style we now know as early English. Henry III. is believed to have been so enthusiastic in his admiration of Bishop Poore's new Cathedral that he set about the rebuilding of Westminster Abbey, which was commenced in 1245 and completed in 1269, as far as the east end of the choir. ”

“ Only by comparison, for old and new are but relative terms after all, and it is hard, as we stand under the vaulted roof of Salisbury Cathedral, to let our thoughts reach back to the far-off time when the stately church stood out as a new possession to take the place of the ruined temple, which had once lifted its head as the centre of Old Sarum. ”

“ As an appreciative student of the building has written: "This is the great beauty of Salisbury, the composition of its mighty body as a whole. So finely proportioned and arranged are its square masses of different heights and sizes, so splendid are the broad effects of light and shadow they produce, so appropriate is the slant of the roof lines, and so nicely placed and gracefully shaped are the simple windows, that for once we can give no thought of regret either to the circling apses of continental lands or the rich traceries and surface carvings and figures—sculptures of later generations. ”

“ The result of this is especially evident in the interior of Salisbury; [9] for here, in spite of the shafts of Purbeck marble, one for each hour in the year, and in spite of the rich moldings of the piers and arches, the lack of structural unity, and the comparative smallness of the windows and lowness of the vaulting cause Salisbury's nave to fall far short of that of Amiens in beauty of construction. Viewed from the west, the cathedral is also disappointing; for the façade is an ugly screen wall, badly decorated, and deserving of little praise. ”

“ Adjoining the Jesuit St. Mary's College is their solid stone Church of the Gesu, its lofty nave bounded by rich columns, and with the long transepts adorned by fine frescoes, some giving representations of scenes in Jesuit history and martyrdom. The great Episcopal Cathedral of Christ Church, a Latin cross in Early English architecture, reproduces the Salisbury Cathedral of England, with a spire two hundred and twenty-four feet high. There are also many other fine Protestant churches ”

“ Centuries have now passed since all was complete; and save for the repair of a crumbling stone, or a restoration of some portions to original conditions, nothing needs to be done. It is 527 feet in length, seven more than Quincy Market in our Boston, and 186 feet wide at the transepts. The low demure-looking tower, only 26 feet taller than the roof, is 130 feet high. In color, it is much like Salisbury Cathedral,—a dark indistinct gray, with thin moss-patches. Parts of the exterior are very rich in decoration, and a feeling akin to admiration is inspired as one gazes at the turreted walls. ”

“ The Cathedral was commenced in 1220 by Bishop Poore and took about forty years to build, but this period did not include the erection of the tower and spire which were later additions. The fine and generally admired west front is, from an architect's point of view, the only part of the exterior that is not admirable. It is in actual fact, fraudulent, just as the whole of the upper wall of St. Paul's Cathedral is an artistic untruth. The west wall of Salisbury is a screen without professing to be one. The porches are very small in relation to the great flattish expanse of masonry above them ”

“ About a hundred and fifty years ago a stone monument to one of these boy bishops was discovered in Salisbury cathedral, under the seats near the pulpit, from whence it was removed to the north part of the nave between the pillars, and covered over with a box of wood, to the great admiration of those, who, unacquainted with the anomalous character it designed to commemorate, thought it “almost impossible that a bishop should be so small in person, or a child so great in clothes.” ”

“ In Salisbury cathedral, says Mr. Lethieullier, I found two very ancient stone figures of bishops, which were brought from Old Sarum, and are consequently older than the time of king Henry the third. In that church, likewise, the pompous marble which lies over Nicholas Longespee, bishop of that see, and son of the, Earl of Salisbury, who died in the year 1297, appears to have been richly plated, though the brass is now quite gone, and is one of 327the most early of that kind which has been met with. Frequently, where there are no effigies, crosiers or crosses denote an ecclesiastic. ”

“ It certainly is a pretty place, and it possesses a truly magnificent church that seems, like so many others in Lincolnshire,{235}
AN ANACHRONISM strangely out of proportion to the requirements of the parish. This church has the architectural quality, so rare in English churches, of being all of one period. Like Salisbury Cathedral it has the merit of unity of design. We noticed some fine gargoyles on the tower, and a few statues still remain in the niches thereof. Within, the building hardly comes up to the expectations raised by its splendid exterior. ”

“ This excellent example of late Perpendicular work was built by the bishop himself in 1520. Its style is not unlike the chantry of Bishop Fox at Winchester with octagonal shafts, (similar to those of the Salisbury Chapel at Christchurch,) which impart a semi-Oriental touch that is so characteristic of this final development of Gothic art. The images it once enshrined are lost, but the original rich colouring is still distinguishable on the fan tracery of the roof. The arms and initials of its founder are borne on the shields of the cornice. ”

“ We can recall the western porch at Ely, and the angel choir at Lincoln, and the Chapter-house at Southwell; but here at Salisbury, we have the whole vast cathedral, all in the same supreme style, every part fitting into its place, and adding its contribution to the general effect, never in contrast, but always in harmony until the effect is attained. What that is may be read in countless books of travel or criticism. ”

“ The celebrated cathedral, which in some respects may be considered the earliest in England, is the chief object at Salisbury, and was founded by Bishop Poore in 1220. It was the first great church built in the Early English style, and its spire is among the most imposing Gothic constructions in existence. The city of Salisbury is unique in having nothing Roman, Saxon, or Norman in its origin, and in being even without the remains of a baronial fortress. ”

“ The abbey was founded in 1232 by Ella, Countess of Salisbury, in pious remembrance of her husband William Longespee, brother of Richard Cœur de Lion. The Earl, who was in close attendance on King John, assisted in founding Salisbury Cathedral, and died by poisoning in 1226. A few years afterwards Ella, directed by visions, founded the monastery and became abbess of her own establishment. ”

“ If the interior of Amiens personifies in the highest degree the majesty and glory of Christian faith, the spire of Salisbury may be said to embody its hope and aspiration. Rising four hundred and four feet from the ground, this spire has few to rival it in all the world. Other cathedrals might dispute its claim to first place among spires; but none is set upon a church so fine. That Salisbury is the most beautiful cathedral in England is not claimed. ”