Bell's Cathedrals: Chichester (1901)

tion; these are the two towers, the west wall of the nave proper, w

oduced. The masonry of the new work is executed so as to carry on the courses of the old stonework that attach it to the rest of the front. The new work has followed the custom of the older and better traditions of the stonemaso

he two lower windows of the west front in this tower are not placed in the same vertical line. This peculiarity has been followed in the new tower. The upper of these two windows is pointed, and has no label-mould. But the angle shafts that carry the arch have carved capitals and square-moulded abaci. Above the head of the pointed window the tower changes in character. The buttresses run up to the top as broad, flat surfaces, except that the northern one is slightly weathered twice. The coupled windows are more deeply recessed, having three orders

rs. The inner order has a plain, straight chamfered moulding; and the outer, a hollow chamfered one. The label-mould and the capitals of the attached shafts in the jambs are a little later in design than the windows themselves. A moulde

some success. It has five divisions between the jambs and mullions. The central one i

he triforium level, where they were probably inserted before the middle of th

is a broad central buttress weathered twice from the base to its top, and in the angle on either side of it are what appear to be two lower, smaller buttresses, with one weathering slope. The probability is that there was only a small buttress here at first, and that the larger one on either side was added by being built over the shallower, broader, and shorter one.These buttresses have been placed here in order to counteract the thrust of the large, deeply-set covering arch over the entrance to the

osed of two full and two half quatrefoils. The work in each arcade is recessed quite seven inches from the face of the general walling above; and the multiplied detail in the mouldings is finely studied. Opposite the entrance is the west doorway into the nave. The deep arch over this is seriously cracked in several places, though it has already been much restored. It has an outer label, which indicates that when it was built in there was

g varieties of work. These may well be followed in the

ssion. The abacus, nearly six inches deep, has a flat upper part on which a continuous diaper of Greek crosses has been cut. The lower part is a plain, hollowed chamfer moulding. Though the small columns in the jambs are new, and also parts of the inner reveal of the jamb, yet the old carved capitals are still in position and also the bases. These capitals bear distinct traces of Byzantine feeling in the design of them. Above the doorway is a billet-moulded string-course, which stops against the circular shafts by the buttresses, and forms the sill of the window. The design of this opening is like that of the one over it in the next stage, which is similar to that in the same position on the west face of the tower. B

rly waved line of the ridge where the lead rolls meet, as it were, against the sky, is a pre

twelfth-century round-arched windows are there almost complete. In detail they are like those of the tower. Tw

low this is a simply moulded string-course, and immediately beneath is the cusped arcade supported on the course of detached moulded and shaped corbels. For five feet below the bottom of the corbels the newer part of the wall is continued. It will be interesting later to

as a further protection. These buttresses have carried the thrust of the vaults down-wards with safety for about six hundred years. But the presence of two distinct arches under each of them indicates that they have been altered a little since first they were put up. This was done when it became necessary to carry their thrust farther out because of the new chapels that were added l

and a half inches in depth. The bases of the jamb-shafts are characteristic of the period during which this work was done. There are two small rounded mouldings, and one larger one. These rest on the square, lower part, of the base. Immediately below the sill is a string-course; and this, as well as the projecting base to the whole wall, is continued from the side of the tower buttress eastward. Each is returned round the four buttresses till it stops against the outer wall of the south walk of the cloisters. The vertical buttresses here were originally completed with a weathering at a point about half-way up their present height; and upon this old weathering the upper and later part o

As they are, in their ruined condition, it may be seen that they were not all finished in identically the same way. The three sides on the north of the octagon of each one are left plain and flat. The other five sides are treated as narrow, recessed panels, formed by the six groups of small shafts at either angle. Every group has its capital and moulded base. The capitals in some cases

rom the top of the wall; and two coupes below this one is another moulded string. Each is about six inches in depth.

sides of the nave as smoke-flues for the heating-

ly. The restored abaci of the capitals, like the originals, are some of them square, others irregular octagons. The interior is vaulted, and has diagonal and wall ribs. On the west and east sides are stone benches. But the west side has in addition a small arcade of four arches forming recessed sedilia. The mouldings to the arches of this small arcade are of about the same date as those in the two outer orders of the enclosing arch on the south front of

s indicated by a portion of a buttress in the cloister. Between this buttress and the porch are two small windows-one of them is now blocked up. The upper one is the same in design as those othe

es. The present roof is of tiles, and is carried on common rafters. Each has a cross-tie, and the struts are shaped so as to give a pointed, arched form to each one. The old fifteenth-cen

l Prebendaries. Above the door leading to the house of the Royal Chaplains is an interesting monu

beyond the end of a long walled passage known as S. Richard's Walk. Looking back n

oduced by some changes made during the fifteenth century. The masonry was more carefully finished than that of the adjoining transept-a

wall. Above it is the low slope of a gable. The window is similar to those on the south side, but the head is a pointed and four-centred arch. The mullions have been restored. Below the part just described is the earlier work of the thirteenth century. It rises as far up as to the string-course formed by the continuation of the abaci of the capitals in the two small single-light windows. These narrow and sharp-pointed windows are peculiar. The arch-moulds are different from the other work of the same date in the church. There is no sign of tracery in their d

e that they were introduced when Langton inserted the large south window of the transept. This window has been very much restored since the seventeenth century, when it was almost knocked in pieces. Wooden props served instead of mullions for many years to hold up the tracery above. The repair that has been effected retains the old design. Above each angle of the transept is a turret, octagonal in form. Neither of them is complete. They were only req

rse cut, like those to be seen on the south-west tower. Its presence here, and at this level, shows that this was the or

artly what was once probably the character of both of them. But the greater part of this window was restored when the central tower and spire were rebuilt after 1861. Between the windows is a buttress that was introduced when the vault was added. The south-east angle on this side retains part of the twelfth-century flat buttressin

is the same as that to the round-headed window on the east; but there is a label-mould over this south one and not on the other. The abaci are new, and the angle-shafts and bases as well, but the capitals are old, though deca

g old lead rain-water heads. The east wall of the chapel runs on northwards till it becomes a part of the buttress of the choir. The wall between the north buttress of the chapel and the buttress of the choir aisle close by is pierced with two small cusped windows of fi

ifth bays have pointed windows, carved capitals, and angle-shafts. These, though now entirely renewed, were built when the whole of this part of the choir was added. Part of the walling for a few feet below the parapet was renewed at the same time. The flying-buttresses are thirteenth-century additions of the same date as the vaults within; and those three nearest the transept abut on parts of the twelfth-century flat buttresses. The flat projection was con

innacles to them above the aisle wall. The fourteenth-century builders had not touched them, as they did those south of the nave. There are, too, no gutters along thei

south-west tower of the west front. It shows, too, in the second bay, the level of the old abaci which ran across from each capital in the window jambs and stopped against the sides of the buttresses. There is also the continuous chamfer course that ran along the walls above the heads of these aisle windows. In proof of these things there is even now one of these same old windows in almost its original state within the little chamber known as the priest-vicars' vestry. This window is in the bay of aisle walling immediately against the transept wall. The string-courses of the old windows were continued round the later buttresses. In the fourth bay, above the point of the window arch, the curve of the ori

next to it. In the third and fourth bays just above the low chamfered base of the wall are three semicircular markings cut on the wall, but there is nothing to explain their existence. In the fourth bay close beneath the sill of the window is a stone built into the wall, upon which a dedication cross is cut. At the fifth bay the east walk of the cloisters joins the wall of the aisle; its roof partly hides a window, above which is a s

rtions of the coping of an earlier and lower pointed gable are bedded in the wall. Under the string beneath the rose window are three windows grouped as a triplet, with no label moulding. The centre light is higher than the others. Thou

l was finished. First a small rose window, recently renewed, of the same date and type as that in the presbytery gable, was inserted under the earlier narrow window close to the gable point; then the original east window was removed, and a larger one was put in, having three lig

with the idea of inserting some new windows in the older walls? But before this scheme had been executed they concluded that they would add bodily to the chapel; and in order to allow the chapel to continue in use while this was being done, they built the extension first outside, then built up the connection with the original walls, and inserted their latest window. Two of the buttresses on this wall are flat. In this they are like

cery of the windows is interesting, as it shows early examples of cusped forms. The east end of the lady-chapel has

e south. Its east and north windows are fifteenth-century insertions. And it has a little rose window in the gable not yet restored, though soon, by decay, it will have disappeared. The smaller window above it is bl

f the old encircling apse, and the position of the first sills, abaci, and string-courses. But it should be noticed that in the eastern bay of this aisle externally, where on the south there is a fifteenth-century solid square panel, on the north there is a small round-headed window. But this little window is of no earlier date than the walls in which it is set. The s

nsept. The gable is a low slope like the present roof, but the slope of the old gable and roof may be seen upon the east wall of the transept. There is one buttress only on the east side of the library. The north side is divided into two parts in its length by a buttress. The parapet has a corbel course similar to that on the two eastern bays of the presbytery aisle. The

once ran along above the old round-headed windows. The next is a continuation of the abaci of the capitals. The other passes under the sills of the windows. A comparison of this wall with that corresponding to it in the south of the transept shows that for some reason the windows here were totally changed and the others only partially. This

ater in character than either of the other large rose windows in the south of the transept and the east of the presbytery. Like the others, it has been much repaired. The two irregular octagon turrets on each angle are of the same date as those on t

twelfth-century flat buttress, like those on the south-west angle of the transept. Westward of this, and standing clear of the wall, is a fine fourteenth-

ry and in the chamber above the present library. It seems to be an example of that later work of the twelfth century of which other specimens no doubt remained in the walls of the lady-chapel before Bishop Gilbert transformed it into its present state. Close to this window, and rising up just above the s

upper part of the parapet. And it may be seen here that the small windows that lighted the triforium gallery had round arched heads in two orders, with a

he south side. The parapet is later in design than those to the choir and lady-chapel; but it is of the same date as that on the south wall of the nave. In the five eastern bays it is of two tiers. The upper projects beyond the lower,

nd presbytery. The four western buttresses had pinnacles with spirelets-now destroyed. The western one was square, the other three octagonal. All these are earlier in date than the fifth one from the we

elves were built. They have traceried heads with early types of cusping of about the same date as, or a little later than, the rose window in the east gable; but they are certainly thirty or forty years earlier than those of the lady-chapel. The north window of the chapel in the fifth bay is a modern insertion of the same character as in the south aisle chapels of the nave. It probably, like them, containe

the same date as the transept vaulting, as they have the dogtooth ornament in their mouldings. On the west face of the buttress, close by, is a double niche in very bad repair;

he coupled openings in the top stage, which are like the thirteenth-century work at the same level in the south-west tow

uilt again after the disaster in 1861, are as nearl

small wall arcades. At each angle there is a turret. Three of these are octagonal, but that at the south-west is circular till it reaches the string course below the parapet; and excepting those on the north-west and south-west they are used as staircases. Each of the four sides is pierced by two groups of coupled opening

l one W been added to the earlier tower during the fifteenth century. The octagonal

ween these, on the other four faces of the spire, are tall stone dormers, with carved crockets and finials on the copings of the high-pitched gables. Above this group the spire is divided into three sections

ry and at Norwich, spires had been added to the central towers. The cathedral bells have been hung in this tower since the fifteenth century. The structure itself, with its massive walls, is