Church tower

“ The church, a grey and venerable pile, with a remarkably well proportioned tower, which exhibits some good architectural details of the perpendicular period, stands in its graveyard, a little to the south of a broad grass-grown road, upon a gentle eminence encompassed by a grey stone fence that looks as ancient as the building itself. Tall trees overshadow it—larch and fir—that rear their lofty spines from near the water’s edge, and, yielding to the northern blasts, bend in graceful curves towards the ancient fane. ”

“ But the white tower is unlike the donjons of other lands, and bears the imprint of the force which built it, for it is not a layman's hold, but a church, whose windows are cut in walls thirteen feet thick, whence the dim light falls across the altar where the magicians wrought their miracles. ”

“ Chains of gold clinked on the temple roof, as chains of baser metal hang on many a Russian church to-day. A square, stone pile, of massive work but rude, stands high above the plain: two gateways toward the north, two toward the south, and two toward the west, only toward the east but one. It seems more likely, notwithstanding, that this gable-roofed structure was always what it is to-day, the central tower of a cruciform church, round-arched in style, opening to transepts and nave by two arches, but to the quire by only one. ”

“ The whole cresting of the tower, and the perfectly natural way in which its lines continue easily into the graceful spire itself, are triumphs of successful design. The silhouette of the mass against the sky so precisely reaches the ideal effect that it is difficult to restrain oneself to sober criticism in describing it, yet the result is achieved so naturally that until we compare it with others, especially with modern ones, we hardly do justice to the subtle beauty that gives it a right to the supremacy it has won. ”

“ At the western end is a spacious round tower, the inside of which forms an elegant and singular entrance into the church, from which it is not separated by close walls, but merely by arches. The whole edifice within has an uncommon and noble aspect. ”

“ Red moulded and carved brick frontages to the houses prevail here, and dignity is secured by the tall classic tower of the church, which, although not in itself entirely admirable, and although the stone of it is of an unhealthy green tinge, is not unpleasing, placed to advantage closing the view at one end of the broad market-place, instead of being aligned with the street. ”

“ Where else can one find a pork-butcher's shop inserted between the tower and the nave, or a tobacconist doing business in the aisle of a church? Even the lower parts of the tower have been given up to secular uses, so that one only realizes the existence of the church by keeping far enough away to see the sturdy pinnacled tower that rises above the desecrated lower portions of the building. ”

“ The tower is the best part of the church. It is of large size, square, and short for its size, probably having had another story. It rests upon a bold plinth, about 5 feet 6 inches high, at the top of which is a bold half-round cordon, with a band. The south-west angle is covered by the pilaster buttresses, of 8 feet 6 inches breadth, and a foot projection, which die into the tower, near the present summit. In this angle is a well-stair. In the south side is an unusually large door, of 8 feet opening, with high lancet arch. ”

“ The Tower.—Of all the exterior beauties, the most striking is the beautiful and graceful tower. Placed where it is, almost in the centre of the long line of the nave, continued in the choir and Lady Chapel, at the point where the transept line intersects it, it is the chief feature of the massive pile. All else seems to be grouped with a view to the enhancing of the effect of the central position of the tower. The other members of the building seem merely to be steps, by means of which approach can be made to it. It is the grandest and most impressive feature of the outside. ”

“ What is called the octagon, which has taken the place of the central tower that had fallen, is quite an original feature of the church. Eight arches, rising from eight ponderous piers, form a windowed tower, or lantern, which lets in a flood of light upon the otherwise gloomy interior. Above the keystone of each arch is the carved figure of a saint. The new brasses of the choir are wonderfully elaborate. ”

“ Next morning we ran about through the booths of the fair, and gazed up from all sides at the vast Cathedral. The style is the simplest and grandest Gothic; but the tower, which, to harmonize, with the body of the church, should be 520 feet high, was left unfinished at the height of 234 feet. I could not enough admire the grandeur of proportion in the great building. It seemed singular that the little race of animals who swarmed around its base, should have the power to conceive or execute such a gigantic work. ”

“ The tower opens into the nave with a wide and lofty arch, carried up to the clerestory level, and the groined vault with large window below produces a good effect. In each side wall of the tower is a richly canopied recess, intended for monuments or sculpture. A portion of what seems to have been a carved altar-piece is preserved in the church and represents scenes in our Lord's Passion. ”

“ The night was bright with stars, but there was no moon in the heavens, and the gloom of the old ivy-coloured church tower was complete. But all the outlines of the place were so well known to him that he could trace them all in the dim light. ”

“ The ingenuity, too, of these strange flying buttresses becomes more and more evident; the "ungainly props" are seen to be so worked into the tower they support, that they almost seem like part of the original design of the first builders. One discovers that it is the organ, and not the arches, that really blocks the view, and one marvels that so huge a mass of masonry can look so light as to present, with the great circles in the spandrels where the arches meet, "a kind of pattern of gigantic geometrical tracery." ”

“ The thirteenth-century tower will at once strike the observer as out of the ordinary; the Norman aisles of the church were carried westwards at the time the tower was built and made to open into it through low arches. The early tracery of the windows should be noticed. The addition of transepts and the enlargement of the chancel about 1250 made the church an exceptionally large structure for the originally small village. ”

“ The wayfarer passing along the valley in the early morning sees a crowd both of men and women streaming out from early mass. In most cases the church seems to have been rebuilt and enlarged in modern times, and a curious effect is often produced by the juxtaposition of the huge whitewashed building and the campanile of the older structure, a little stone 177 tower with circular-headed apertures, which scarcely reaches to the upper windows of its overgrown companion. ”

“ This edifice, in a very disagreeable manner, stands out into the street, and as it has been observed, is but an incumbrance to the way, and without having any thing but deformity itself, spoils the beauty of the whole street, and hides the prospect of Temple Bar, which would terminate the view very advantageously, and be seen almost as far again as it is at present. The church consists of a large body, and a small tower, every way unproportioned. ”

“ There are full forty towers, which are lofty and well built, the largest of which has fifty steps leading to its main body, and is higher than the tower of the principal church at Seville. The stone and wood of which they are constructed are so well wrought {153} in every part, that nothing could be better done, for the interior of the chapels containing the idols consists of curious imagery, wrought in stone, with plaster ceilings, and woodwork carved in relief, and painted with figures of monsters and other objects. ”

“ The fourth reason which they give is, that if the said church has to be moved to another site opposed to that declared and determined on by them, the tower would have to be destroyed, which is a good and singular work, and could not be rebuilt without a great sum of maravedis, and the church could not be without a tower. ”

“ It is a square tower, erected in the seventeenth century, 150 feet in height. It is extremely lofty, and its p. 82sides are decorated with pointed windows in a good style, figures placed in rich shrines, strings of quatrefoils and rows of ornamental arches; in one of the niches on the west side is placed a statue which has excited much controversy. It is much defaced by time and exposure to the weather.
At the east end of the church, as now rebuilt, stand the ruins of the chapels above the choir, consisting of the outer walls, with the remains of several windows of Gothic architecture ”

“ At the corner of every street is a little turretted tower, from the top of which a small boy commences at sunrise to batter one of these discordant instruments, whilst from the belfries of the cathedral there issues a peal, to which, comparatively speaking, the din of a boiler manufactory is a treat. If those bells fail to bring the people to church, at all events they allow them no peace out of it. ”

“ Some of the stones are held by iron cramps, but no iron or other metal spindles. The roof of the tower, as well as that of the church, is slate, without spouts, and there are no lightning conductors to the building. There is open country all round the church, and no tree of any size within a mile of the tower. ”

“ The buttresses are necessarily of vast size, and are formed partly inside and partly outside the church. A lofty tower is erected over one of the bays of the north aisle, and the two nave columns which carry it are in consequence built of larger dimensions than any of the others. A fine Romanesque doorway still remains in the wall, just outside this tower, and leads now into the modern cloister court; but the principal entrances to the church are by grand doorways of the same age as the church, whose jambs and arches have rich continuous mouldings. ”

“ The square flanking towers, with their later spires, the arcading over the head of the window, and the graceful curve in the battlement are all worthy of attention, and will serve to confuse visitors before they realise that the Norman architecture is concealed under a later casing, and that there is a great deal of old work re-used in the new.
There is a curious buttress, too, which goes across the west window of this transept to strengthen the south-west corner of the great tower. In fact, the south side of the church is the only side that, as builders say, has "settled" at all. ”

“ It stands on a gentle eminence, sufficient to give it a good site, and has a pavement of flat gravestones in front. It is doubtless, as regards its foundation, a very ancient church, but has not exactly a venerable aspect, being in too good repair, and much restored in various parts; not ivy-grown, either, though green with moss here and there. The tower is square and immensely massive, and might have supported a very lofty spire; so that it is the more strange that what spire it has should be so oddly stuck beside it, springing out of the church wall. ”

“ The exterior of the church between the windows is supported by handsome stone buttresses, and from the indisputable marks of the ancient roof, which are visible on the east side of the tower, where the roof has joined up to it, and from there not being any traces of columns supporting any interior arches, it seems clear that it has never had any clerestory. ”

“ Close at hand, within half-a-stone's throw, stands an ivy-mantled parish church, with its mossy grey tower, from the turreted pinnacle of which rises a flagstaff, crowned by its weathercock; under the eaves and within the hollows and chinks of the [Pg 62] masonry of the tower are his nursery establishments. On the battlements and projecting grotesque tracery of its Gothic ornaments he retires to enjoy himself, looking down on the rural world below ”

“ It is built of red brick, with Bath stone enrichments—very rich and sugary, and probably from the designs of a confectioner principally engaged in the manufacture of ornamental Twelfth-cakes. The exterior of the tower, prodigal in pinnacles, crockets, and mediæval fandanglums of all sorts, and stuck about with blank windows that open upon nothing, is surely the last word in the ready-made picturesque, and lacks the reposeful dignity properly belonging to a church. The interior, where there is less scope for riotous fancy, is better. ”

“ The really great and most curious feature of this ancient church is the peculiar round tower which rises on the south side midway along the nave and is joined to its more modern neighbour by a ligature which is, in a way, inexplicable. One can understand the desire to preserve so ancient and curious a relic, and even evolve for himself its original use, though it looks for all the world like the round towers of Ireland, which many a savant has declared were pagan. ”

“ A tower is specially the place for them. It should rise considerably above the highest part of the Church, so that their sound may be quite uninterrupted. This tower should not be used as a staircase to a gallery, nor as an organ-loft. Not as a staircase to a gallery, for the simple reason that there should be no gallery in a Church—a gallery cutting across the nave and aisles of Westminster Abbey would effectually destroy it; not as an organ-loft, because, cooped up in a tower, that noble instrument is less effective than elsewhere. ”