Chapter IX: Appendix (1)

I. _S. Mary’s, Stone_
II. _Churches in Northern Germany_

I. _Lübeck_
II. _Naumburg_
III. _Erfurt and Marburg_
IV. _Münster and Soest_
V. _German Pointed Architecture_

I

SOME ACCOUNT OF THE CHURCH OF S. MARY, STONE, NEAR DARTFORD

(_From the papers of the Kent Archæological Society, in Archæologia Cantiana, 1860_)

Having given these preliminary notes, illustrative of the history of the church, it will be well now to give a detailed architectural description of the fabric, illustrated, as far as may be, by the discoveries which have been made in the course of its restoration.[66]

The church appears to have consisted at first of a chancel, nave with north and south aisles, western tower with the aisles prolonged on either side of it, and western porch. The only subsequent additions were, in the fourteenth century, a small vestry on the north side of the east bay of the chancel, and in the sixteenth century the Wilshyre chantry, in the space between the vestry and the east wall of the north aisle. In the fourteenth century (probably during the bishopric of Haymo de Hethe) the windows at the west end of the nave and aisles, and that in the west bay of the south wall, were inserted; and at the same time the tower-piers were altered. Probably they were, like the other piers throughout the church, exceedingly delicate, and were thought to be not sufficiently solid to carry the weight of the steeple; but at any rate it is clear that the piers, with their capitals, are not earlier than _circa_ A.D. 1350, whilst the arches have earlier mouldings, and are of the same character as the rest of the church. It was at the same time that additional support was given to the eastern piers of the tower, by the addition of bold flying buttresses, spanning the aisles, and visible only on the inside of the church. The staircase to the tower, placed against the south-west angle, appears to me to have been added at the same time; whilst the upper part of the tower retains nothing but poor fifteenth-century work, and was probably entirely rebuilt at that time, if, indeed, it is not a work of the seventeenth century, undertaken after the fire which melted the bells, in A.D. 1638.

No other alteration was made in the church before the Reformation, and in 1638 the church suffered from the fire caused by lightning, mentioned by Hasted and in the Petitions to Parliament. The roofs throughout must have been burned, and, covered as they were with shingle,[67] it is not surprising that when once set on fire no part of them was saved. Traces of the fire are very evident, particularly on the stones of the tower arches, which are reddened by its action. We found also in the upper part of the aisle walls portions of molten lead, which had run into the interstices of the stone work at the time of the fire. The Petitions of the Parishioners of Stone give most exact information as to what happened before and after the fire; from them we learn (1) that before the fire the stone groined roof existed on the chancel, but was much dilapidated, and that the glass in the chancel-windows was in a sad state of decay: (2) “that the chauncell received little damage by the late fire,” yet that a very large part of the brief-money, raised for the repair of the church, was “uncessantly wasted and bestowed on the same, soe that the church is like to remayne unfynished.” This was in A.D. 1640, and I think we may gather from it the exact date of the alterations in the chancel. Its groined roof was taken down, its walls lowered some five feet, the tracery of the window in the north wall of the chancel partly destroyed in order to lower the walls, and the window then built up; the east window and probably one in the south wall destroyed, and imitations of perpendicular windows--poor in character, but nevertheless very good for their date--inserted in the place of the original windows in the north, east, and south walls of the chancel. The wall was rebuilt on either side of these windows with numerous fragments of the old groining ribs, thus affording the final proof that the windows were inserted and the groining taken down at the same time. This discovery was most grateful to me, inasmuch as it had been objected to the restoration of the original windows in the chancel, that those which we had to remove were fair examples of perpendicular work, and valuable in their way: in truth, they were examples of Gothic work in the years 1638–40, of no value at all in relation to the architecture of the rest of the church, though undoubtedly affording very interesting evidence of the undying love of Gothic architecture in this country, and of a not unsuccessful attempt at its revival.[68]

I have been unable to learn the exact date of the repair and re-roofing of the remainder of the church. The living was sequestered in A.D. 1650, and Mr. Chase must, I should think, in the ten years between the petitions and this date, have put his church into tenantable condition. The nave roof appears to be of about this date, and is framed with tie-beams, queen-posts, and purlines, with arched braces above the collars, and, though not very ornamental, has been re-opened, with the very best result on the general effect of the church. Subsequently to the erection of the new roofs, they had been churchwardenized, in the usual way, by the addition of plaster ceilings,[69] and in a less usual way, by the addition of a second roof over the other, and supported by it to the serious damage of the walls and piers.[70] The vestry seems never to have been repaired after the fire, and the Wilshyre chantry was roofed with a steep lean-to against the north wall of the chancel, and ceiled with a flat ceiling, for which I cannot be too grateful, as it made it impossible to insert a new window at this place in the A.D. 1640 restoration, and afforded me the only chance of discovering and restoring the original chancel windows. Knowing this before making my plans, I cut into the wall at this point, and was rewarded, even beyond my greatest expectations, by the discovery of the window-jamb, the monials, and a sufficient portion of the tracery to enable me to restore it exactly to its original design in every respect.

Having thus completed the notice of the alterations in the fabric, it is time to give a proper account of all its architectural peculiarities. The church is internally a rare example of a building as nearly as possible in the same state as when it was first built. For a village church its character is unusually sumptuous and ornate; and perhaps there is no example of any first-pointed building in England in which the grace and delicacy which characterize the style have been carried to greater perfection. It is impossible, indeed, to speak too highly of the workmanship or of the design of every part, and close as is its similarity in many points to our glorious abbey at Westminster, it is a remarkable fact, that in care and beauty of workmanship the little village church is undoubtedly superior to the minster. This might well be, for with all its beauty, and with all its vigour, the mere execution of much of the work at Westminster is not first-rate, and hardly such as one might expect in so important a position.

The exterior of the church is exceedingly simple. There are doors at the west end and in the west bay of the north aisle. In front of the former there was a groined porch, of which a small portion of the springer for the groining on one side only remains; this was brought to light by the removal of a brick porch which had been erected in its place. The string-course above the door is of the thirteenth century, but the window above it of three lights, and three other windows of two lights in the western bays of the aisles, are of the fourteenth century, and the work, probably, of Bishop Haymo de Hethe. The north aisle door is remarkable for its rich detail and peculiar character. One of the orders is adorned with a chevron on one face and with dogteeth on the other, and the inner order is enriched with a rose. The dogteeth and the carving of the rose are quite consistent in character with the date of the church, and the chevron is no doubt a curious instance of imitation of earlier work, rather than evidence of the doorway itself being earlier than the rest of the church. The dogteeth are well developed, and the roses are similar in character to those in the internal jambs and arches of the transept doors at Westminster. The windows in the side walls of the aisles are all alike on the exterior, simply chamfered with labels over them, save the western window of the south aisle, where there is no label. Those at the east ends of the aisles are more important; that to the east of the north aisle being of four lights, and that to the east of the south aisle of two lights. The buttresses are very simple, of two stages in height, with plain weatherings. The north chancel aisle is the Wilshyre chantry, a late third-pointed work, with a battlemented parapet. The erection of this chapel involved the removal of one of the chancel buttresses, and in place of it a very bold flying buttress was erected, which spans the roof of the chapel, and adds much to the picturesque effect of this side of the church. Its erection in the fifteenth century was good proof, in the absence of any other, that at that time at any rate the groined roof of the chancel was standing, for otherwise its erection would never have been required. The removal of the high, tiled, lean-to roof of the Wilshyre chantry has exposed the flying buttress, the fine east window of the north aisle, and the still finer window in the north wall, restored, as I have said, in exact accordance with the window which I was so happy as to find there. The vestry, which forms a continuation of the north chancel aisle, is lighted with two small windows, with ogee trefoiled heads. It was a roofless ruin, but now it has been re-roofed, and, as well as the chantry, is covered with a lead flat roof, which seems to have been the original covering, and has the advantage of not concealing any portion of the chancel. The east window is new, of three lights, corresponding in all respects with the restored north window, save in its dimensions, which are rather larger. So much of the east wall had been taken down and rebuilt, that it was impossible to decide exactly whether the east window was originally of three or four lights. I am rather inclined to believe that it was of four lights, for towards the end of the thirteenth century it is not at all unusual to find windows of an even number of lights in the east end; and the arcade below the window inside is of four divisions. Still, as there was no evidence whatever that this was the case, I thought it, on the whole, safer to repeat simply that in which I was certainly following the old architect, and the grandeur of the two restored windows is so remarkable that one need not wish them to be other than they are. In the south wall of the chancel one of the windows inserted _circa_ A.D. 1640 still remains; it is of some value to the antiquary, and the contrast between it and the new windows, I hope, will amply justify the course I have adopted, in removing its two companions. The chancel buttresses are of great projection, but all their weatherings and finishings are modern, and for lack of funds remain for the present unaltered. The chancel is of two bays in length, and between its western buttress and the south wall of the nave is a space of six feet, through which, on the south, there appears to have been a doorway.[71] This would have opened into the western portion of the chancel, close to the chancel arch, and serves to prove that the chancel was not originally intended to be filled with wooden stalls.

Before the restoration of the church, the roof over the nave was steep, and flatter in its pitch over the aisles; and the chancel roof presented two gables towards the east, and had a gutter over the centre of the ceiling from end to end. All this is now altered. The nave roof has returned to its one uniform slope, simple and dignified in its effect; and the chancel walls, raised to their old height, so as to admit of the restoration of the groining, and surmounted by a high-pitched roof, finished with gable-copings and crosses, presents again the outline which no doubt it presented before the fire in A.D. 1638. The chancel roof is now much higher than that of the nave, but I hope some day to remedy whatever defect there is in the external proportions of the building, by the removal of the poor modern battlements, and the erection of a wooden spire, shingled after the common Kentish fashion. The roof of the steeple was burnt in A.D. 1638, and the heat having been so great that the bells melted, it is fair to assume that the roof so burnt was rather a spire than a flat roof, and, indeed, Hasted’s expression that the “steeple” was burnt, refers, it can hardly be doubted, to a timber spire.

I will now proceed to give a detailed description of the interior. The nave is entered by the west door, under the tower. The piers of the tower arches were re-cased in the fourteenth century, and the capitals, carved with poor stiff foliage at the same time, afford a marked contrast to the workmanship and design of the earlier capitals. The three arches under the north, south, and east walls of the tower are unaltered, of the same character as the arches in the nave, and evidently earlier than the piers which support them. The nave and aisles consist, in addition to the engaged western steeple, of three bays. The most remarkable feature in the design of this interior is the way in which the whole of the work gradually increases in richness of detail and in beauty from west to east. This will be seen immediately on an examination of the building itself. It is a very charming feature, and though one might have supposed that it would not be so very uncommon, suggested as it seems to be naturally by the respect which in almost all ages has been paid to the altar end of the church, I believe I may affirm that Stone church is unique in the studied way in which it has been done. At the risk of being very tedious, I give a detailed description of the interior, which will explain the variation of the design to which I have referred:

_Western Bay_ (_north side_).--The window is of two lancets, with quatrefoil above: the inside arch chamfered, with a simple label returned, without any carving at bottom. The jambs are simply splayed: arches between nave and aisles moulded.

_Middle Bay._--Windows of same shape, but the inside arch and the quatrefoil are richly moulded, and the internal jambs are finished with a moulding and stone shaft, with moulded base and carved capital. The label is enriched with dogteeth (it is the only label in the church in which they occur), and is terminated with heads of a queen on the right, and a king on the left, the latter much defaced.

The arches between the nave and aisles are moulded, but more richly than those in the western bay.

_Eastern Bay._--Tracery of windows as before; the quatrefoil is not moulded. Jambs have two shafts (one stone and one marble) on each side, and a detached marble shaft in the centre. From these a richly-moulded rear-arch springs, with tracery of two lights corresponding with that of the windows. The whole composition of this window is of extreme beauty.

The arches between aisles and nave in this bay are richly moulded, and the centre of the soffit is enriched with a large dogtooth, making it much more ornate in character than the other arches.

The windows in the south wall correspond generally with those in the north, and exhibit the same graduation of enrichment. In the window in the eastern bay there are two circular bosses of foliage in the spandrels of the internal tracery;[72] in the opposite window these circles are plain sunk circles without any sculpture: and it appears that the architect, wishing to avoid the expense of sinking the whole surface of the stone, so as to leave the sculpture in advance of it, let in his bosses into a rebate in the stone work. This is a very rare mode of construction, but appears to be perfectly lawful.

The east window of the north aisle is richer than any of the others in the nave. It is of four lights, with two marble shafts in each jamb, and one in the centre monial. The tracery has quatrefoiled circles over the side-lights, under enclosing arches, and a large cusped circle in the head: the arch is extremely pointed. The mouldings throughout are more delicate than anywhere else in the church, and the large circle has a dogtooth enrichment. Externally this window is exceedingly simple: the rich mouldings of the interior being changed to a plain chamfer and broad flat tracery bars, very peculiar in their effect. This window was entirely blocked up, the cusping in the tracery concealed, and a four-centred brick arch under it connected the aisle with the Wilshyre chantry. We have taken away this brick arch, restored the old jambs and sill, and supported them on a flat stone arch. The flat roof of the chantry crosses the window just below the springing, and the portion above is to be glazed with stained glass, whilst that below is open through to the chantry. This was the best arrangement that could be made with the double object of preserving the old window in all its integrity and yet making the chantry available for use by the congregation.

The east window of the south aisle is much less magnificent than that last described: it is of two lights, with two marble shafts in each jamb, and an engaged stone shaft in the monial. Externally this window is remarkable for the curious freak by which the outer chamfer is gathered in with a curve some six inches on each side just at the springing.

The chancel arch is more richly moulded on the west face than any of the others, and has a band of foliage enrichments of very magnificent character, very elaborate developments of the dogtooth; each being the general shape of a dogtooth, but filled up with intricate and beautiful foliage. Above the chancel arch on either side are two quatrefoils, within which are carved exquisite compositions of foliage, arranged in the form of a cross. Brilliant traces of red colour remain on these carvings. These quatrefoils were completely concealed by plaster before the restoration, and their re-opening has amazingly improved the effect of the wall above the chancel arch. The side walls of the nave are finished at the top with a moulded string-course, which is returned for about a foot on either side at the east, and was probably continued all round the church.[73]

The whole body of the church was covered with a coat of plaster. Most fortunately this had been put up by some pious plasterer, who, though he loved plaster well, loved the church better, and had no heart for hacking holes in its walls to afford a key for his plaster. The consequence was, that in an hour or two the whole of the walls were stripped of their covering, and displayed their old masonry fortunately intact. The walls above the arcades are faced with chalk, regularly squared and coursed on the side towards the nave, and built roughly on the sides toward the aisles, and are finished with a course of Gatton stone below the string-course at the top. The aisle walls are built of rough flint at their base; above this a course of squared chalk below the principal string-course, and on this there are traces of a thirteenth century pattern, painted in red. Above the string-course the walls are built entirely with coursed chalk, with quoins and dressings of Gatton stone.

The removal of the plaster between the two eastern windows in the south wall disclosed a portion of an arcade. This seems never to have been completed, for whilst the lower stone has the dogtooth enrichment of the arch finished, the upper stone has it simply blocked out in the square: we found a corresponding fragment of arcading built into the upper part of the chancel wall, and whilst that which exists in the south wall appears to have been always in the same place, it seems pretty clear that the other piece was never fixed near it. The conclusion at which I arrive is, therefore, that these are fragments of a work commenced but abandoned for another scheme at the very time the work was going on.

Before going to the chancel a note should be added here, as to the painted decorations which have been discovered. A portion of these are architectural in their character, the rest pictorial. Among the former, is the running pattern forming a border under the string-course in the south aisle. This I hope to continue all along the wall, it being sufficiently clear in the one place where it occurs to warrant restoration; and I have no doubt of the importance attached by the old architect to decoration on a line so marked as that of the principal string-course. There is also a faint border round the chancel arch, painted in red, but rather later in its character than the string-course. The pictorial decorations are all on the north aisle wall. Between the first and second windows is a large sitting figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary nursing our Lord: S. Mary has a veil, and is not crowned, and has a red robe and a blue cloak. She is seated on a throne with shafts at the angles, and the canopy is a gabled trefoil with triple pinnacles on either side. As far as I can judge, this work appears to be very late thirteenth century or early fourteenth century work, and was evidently rich in colour. The painting between the two next windows is so damaged that I have been unable to decide what it represents. On the wall east of the eastern window is another figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also nursing our Lord, and seated under a trefoiled canopy. No other traces of painting remain, save the colour, already mentioned, on the sculptured crosses over the chancel arch, and some painted crosses on the east wall of the chancel.

From this description it will be seen how systematically all this portion of the work has been designed: subject to the carrying out of the general scheme there are, however, some small peculiarities which may point, either to the Gothic love of variety on the part of the architect, or (and as I think, more probably) to the fact that portions of the work may have been special offerings or donations from different persons. Certainly I see no other way of accounting for the repetition within a few years of two copies of the same painted subject on the north aisle wall.

It is to be noticed that there is no sign of a piscina in either of the aisles. I thought it possible at first that the arcade we discovered in the south aisle might have formed a portion of the sedilia for an altar in the aisle, but I hardly think now that this could have been the case.

The chancel consists of a western bay of seven feet in depth, from east to west, and east of this of two bays each 21 ft. 2 in. wide and 16 ft. 3 in. long, from centre to centre of the groining shafts. The west bay has no windows, but there is, as I have said, a trace of a doorway in the south wall. The other bays have each three divisions of wall arcading on marble shafts, and the east wall has four divisions of the same arcade. The spandrels of these arcades are filled in with sculptured foliage, so beautiful and delicate in its execution, and so nervous and vigorous in its design, that I believe it may safely be pronounced to be among the very best sculpture of the age that we have in this country. I shall have to enter again upon the subject of this portion of the work, in comparing it to the sculpture at Westminster. The work at Stone appears to me to be all by one man, and he seems to have been, if not the best of the Westminster sculptors, at any rate equal to the best.

There are in this chancel twenty-one of these spandrels, all different in design, but all nearly equal in merit. The aggregate amount of work bestowed here is as nothing compared with that which has been lavished in scores of cases on sculpture in our new churches: yet is there any one modern work which possesses a tithe of the value of this work? And would it not be far better to limit our nineteenth century carvers of foliage to work rather less in amount, and considerably more in merit, than that which they are wont to give us? The sculpture at Stone was no contract work: no exhibition of the greatest skill in covering the largest possible number of stones with the greatest possible quantity of carving: and it was executed with a delicacy of hand, a fineness of eye, a nervous sensibility so soft, that no perfunctory imitation can ever be in the least degree likely to rival its beauty. The small bosses of foliage which adorn the smaller spandrels in this arcade are very well carved; and it is worthy of remark that the same design is repeated several times. No. 1 is repeated four times, No. 2 six times, and No. 3 seven times; besides which the same design is used, simply reversed. It looks as though a model had been cut, and then copies made of it.

The walls of the chancel are only 2 ft. 3½ in. thick, but the great size of the buttresses amply compensated for this, and preserved them from suffering at all by the thrust of the groining. Before the restoration the state of the chancel was a sad falling off from its old state. The arcade at the base of the walls was perfect all round. The lower part of the groining-shafts remained, as also did the whole of a cluster of shafts on each side between the short western bay already mentioned and the next. The groining was all destroyed, but marks of it remained against the wall, and it was easy therefore to obtain its exact section. The treatment of the western bay was peculiar. It was clearly never covered, as the rest of the chancel was, with a quadripartite vault. The mark of a vault remained against the wall above the chancel arch, whilst the side walls showed that a barrel-vault had sprung from them. The cluster of three shafts between this bay and the next remained to be explained. One of them only was the groining-shaft answering to the others; but upon a very close examination of a fragment of the wall above them and of the marks on the caps themselves, I was able to ascertain beyond doubt that the two other shafts had carried an arch moulded on the east face, the soffit of which, continued westward, formed the pointed barrel-vault over the western bay. This has now been all restored, and with so much certainty as to all its parts, that I trust it will not be opened to the criticisms to which too many restorations are liable, of being rather ingenious than true. I should mention that the new groining-ribs are of the same section as the old. The window in the north wall has been exactly restored after the old remains, some of which have indeed been incorporated with the new work. It is of three uncusped lights, with tracery composed of three cusped circles. The cusping was let into a groove, and a sufficient number of fragments remained to give the exact number of cusps, etc. On the exterior the jamb has two engaged shafts, with caps and bases, and on the inside the monials are well moulded and have each a detached marble shaft, whilst the jambs have two marble shafts and are richly moulded. Internally the arch and tracery mouldings are very delicate, whilst externally they consist of bold chamfers and hollows only. The detail of the sculpture of the capitals of the monials was managed with rare skill, as seen by a fragment found in the north wall. This window is now treated in the same way as that at the east end of the north aisle, being partly below the roof of the Wilshyre chantry. An old arch existed behind the arcade under it, and this has been replaced by one of stone, so that the chantry is now sufficiently open to the chancel for the purpose of use by the congregation.

On the south wall of the chancel is the old piscina, under one of the divisions of the arcading. The arcade is continued across the east wall of the chancel, in four divisions; and treated exactly in the same way as at the sides; it is pretty clear, therefore, that it can never have been intended to place the altar against the wall, and it was no doubt brought forward a few feet (with perhaps a low wall or reredos behind it) in the way so common in the case of apsidal chancels, and of which we have examples at Arundel and at Warfield in the case of square-ended chancels. In the two divisions of the arcade we found, on removing the whitewash and plaster, a painted cross pattee, enclosed within a circle: it was red on a white ground, and outlined with black. Whether this was a dedication cross, or only painted in connection with the altar, it is impossible to say.[74]

In the chancel floor are some ancient grave-stones, among which those of John Lumbarde, Rector, a fine brass cross of the fourteenth century, and the little brass of Sir John Dew, are well known, and of much value. They have been carefully relaid in connection with a new pavement round the altar. The altar-rail has also been brought forward; the altar set on a footpace about three feet from the east wall, with a low stone perpeyn wall at its back, capped with marble, and showing the old arcade above it.

It remains to mention a few ancient fragments which have been discovered during the progress of the works.

They are:

1. A fragment of very richly cusped thirteenth-century tracery, very delicately moulded. This has not formed part of a window, and perhaps belonged to the reredos, if there was one.

2. A fine head of a monk (small).

3. A half-destroyed carved capital of a large shaft clustered of three: it looks like the capital of a groining-shaft, but agrees with nothing in the church.

4. One moulded marble capital, and two fragments of a marble monial, with engaged shaft inside and out. There is no existing marble monial in the church, and the only suggestion I can make is, that possibly the same increase of enrichment that I have noticed was carried on to the east end, and the east window executed with monials entirely of marble; but on the other hand, this monial, though of marble, is not so rich in detail and moulding as the stone monial, with its detached marble shaft in the north window of the chancel.

5. A portion of the lower part of a sitting figure of our Lord. This figure is that of a man about four feet six inches in height. The feet are naked and pierced with the wounds. There is no sign of any place from which such a figure could have been moved. Its date is about that of the church.

6. A spandrel of an arcade, sculptured with a portion of the resurrection of the dead. It very nearly fits the spandrel of the arcade discovered in the south wall of the south aisle, and, in order that it may be preserved, I have had it placed there. The treatment of the bodies coming out of the coffins is good, and the work is about the date of the church.

7. A large number of fragments of the groining-ribs of the chancel, of the windows, etc. etc., were also found. The bulk of all these were built into the upper part of the chancel walls, and into the gable wall above the chancel arch, and were no doubt placed there at the time of the alterations of the building, after the fire in the seventeenth century.

Of the works recently executed in the church, it will be sufficient to say, that the nave has been re-seated with open seats, and paved with the best red, black and buff tiles. The eastern part of the chancel floor has been repaved with marble and encaustic tiles, and want of the necessary funds alone has prevented the re-laying of the remainder of the chancel floor and the completion of the seats. The lectern for the Bible is of oak. The whole of the chancel has been groined in stone and chalk: the groining-ribs being of Caen stone, and the filling in of the vault of chalk. I have been unable, on account of the cost, to introduce any bosses at the intersection of the groining-ribs; we found no remains of any, but as they were used in the groining at Westminster Abbey, I should have preferred their introduction. On the same account the wall-ribs are chamfered, not moulded. The other ribs are exactly copied from the old fragments found in the chancel wall, and I was also able to obtain the exact height of the vault, and as nearly as possible the mouldings of the bold arch on the eastern face of the waggon-vault at the entrance of the chancel. The east and north windows of the chancel are both new, and copied from the old fragments found by me in the north wall. A pulpit of stone, alabaster and marble, carved by Mr. Earp, and the gift of the family of the late Archdeacon King, is placed in the north-east angle of the nave. The window in the east bay of the north aisle is filled with stained glass, and is to form one of a series, those in the north aisle illustrating the miracles of our Lord, and those in the south aisle the parables. This window is the gift of Mrs. Cooper, and is executed (as are the others) by Mr. Wailes, of Newcastle. The east window of the north aisle is a memorial window to the late Archdeacon King, erected by his parishioners: and the subject is, our Lord in Majesty, with angels on either side. The east window of the chancel is also a memorial to the Archdeacon, and erected by his family; it contains a long series of subjects from the life of our Lord, in medallions, and is richly treated in Mr. Wailes’s usual style; and it is only to be regretted that in brilliancy of colour and nervousness of drawing he does not yet by any means equal the old school of painters on glass. The altar-cloth is of red velvet, embroidered in the old manner by Mrs. G. Murray.

I referred, in the earlier part of this paper, to the similarity between the detail of the work at Stone and that of the earlier portions of Westminster Abbey; and before I conclude I will, as well as I can, explain the extent of this similarity. Few subjects are of more interest to me, and I suppose to all students of our ancient architecture, than this of the extent to which the work of the same artist may be traced in different buildings. I have been able, in a considerable number of cases, to prove pretty clearly what I now wish to prove about Stone and Westminster;[75] but I need hardly say that the evidence is always of a kind which it is extremely difficult to give in writing; though it is difficult to resist its force if the two works are examined one after the other, and their special peculiarities carefully noted. I will endeavour however to show the existence of something more than the ordinary likeness of all works of the same date and style, between Westminster Abbey and some portions of Stone church.

I. _The Arcades round the Chapels_ of the choir at Westminster are almost identical in shape and design with that round the chancel at Stone. The proportions of their trefoil cusps are very peculiar, and as nearly as possible the same. The spandrels are filled with foliage carved exactly in the same spirit. The labels are terminated upon small corbels level with the capitals: a very unusual arrangement. The arcades rest upon a stone chamfered seat; and the arch-moulds, though not the same, are of the same character, and both of them undercut at the back.

II. _Window Tracery._--The original window tracery at Westminster is the same as at Stone. The windows in the south triforium of the nave (four eastern bays) are of precisely the same character as the window discovered in the chancel at Stone. The latter are remarkable for the great width of the light (3 ft. 1 in. and 3 ft. 10 in. in the clear), and this is very characteristic of the Westminster windows. The Stone windows are remarkable also for very broad chamfered tracery-bars on the outside, corresponding with very rich mouldings on the inside. The triforium openings at Westminster are treated just in the same way on the side next the triforium, and a comparison of the triforium of the choir and north transept there with the east window of the north aisle at Stone would well illustrate the identity of character. The stone cusping in both is let into grooves in the way common in early tracery.

III. _The Sculpture of Foliage_ is very similar in both churches. The spandrels of arcades are treated just in the same way: at Westminster sculptures of subjects are introduced here and there in place of foliage; at Stone all the spandrels are filled with sculpture of foliage; but we found in the thickness of the wall one spandrel sculptured with figures, which appears never to have been used.[76] The foliage of capitals is generally similar, and the very remarkable bosses of foliage in the chancel arch at Stone, arranged in something of the outline of an enormous dogtooth, are all but repetitions of the similar archivolt enrichments in the triforium of the north transept at Westminster. The roses round the archivolt of the south door at Stone are of the same kind as those round the inside arches of the north transept doorways at Westminster.

The foliage carved in the form of crosses in the quatrefoils over the chancel arch at Stone are repeated in a quatrefoil over the door in the cloister at Westminster, leading to the private apartments of the abbat. The crosses are, of course, not identical in their treatment; but the idea is the same, and one of rare occurrence.

IV. _The Materials_ used in the Abbey and at Stone are as nearly as possible the same. The wrought stone work is executed in Caen stone and Gatton stone, and a great deal of chalk is used for wall-lining and groining, and all the shafts are of marble.

V. Finally, the same general system of proportion is observed in the minster and the village church. In both, the width from the aisle walls to the centre of the columns is equal to half the width of the nave. At Westminster the height is given by three equilateral triangles, whose base-line is the width across the nave from centre to centre of the columns; and two of these triangles give the height for the springing of the groining, and the third the height of the groining to its apex. At Stone, if we erect triangles on the same base-line, the first gives the top of the capitals of the nave arcade; the second, within very little, the height of the top of the wall; and the third may very well be supposed to have marked the height of the ridge of the timber roof. The width of the bays in the nave of Stone is equal to the diagonal of half the width of the nave; and the width of the bays in the chancel is equal to the diagonal from the centre of one column to the centre of the nave or aisle opposite the next column; whilst the height of the chancel is given by two triangles similar to those in the nave, whose base is the width from centre to centre of the groining-shafts.

I do not wish to lay too much stress on any one of these points of resemblance: it is not to be expected that two churches, built by the same architect, so unlike in size, in position, and in dignity, should show anything more than some general resemblance of character; but I cannot help thinking, that when I have pointed to such a general agreement in the proportions, the materials, the sculpture, and the details, as we find at Stone and Westminster, it would be almost enough to decide the question, even without the final and (as it appears to me) conclusive evidence afforded by the all but exact identity of the cusping and the general similarity of design in the wall-arcades in the two churches, which must either have been copied one from the other, or designed by the same architect.

II

CHURCHES IN NORTHERN GERMANY

(_From the Ecclesiologist, 1854–1857_)

I

THE CHURCHES OF LÜBECK

Three old cities far apart, across the whole breadth of a continent, enable us to form a fair judgement of what the whole of Europe may have been in the palmy days of the Middle Ages. They are Lübeck, Nuremberg, and Verona; each telling its own tale, each marked with the impress of national peculiarity, and each remarkable, among other things, the one as the city of brick work, the next as that of stone, and the last as that of marble. In Lübeck nothing but brick was ever seen; in Nuremberg, stone was used with an excellence seldom rivalled; whilst in Verona, though brick was most beautifully used, the great aim of its architects was ever to introduce the marbles in which the district around it is so rich. Each of these cities deserves a full and ample study, for each teaches its own lesson, and that a lesson scarcely to be learnt elsewhere; and if this evening I give you such notes as I was able to make in the course of a short sojourn last autumn in Lübeck, it is not because I do not value Nuremberg and Verona much more, but because it would seem that if one were to write of all three, this is the one with which one should commence, as nearest to and most connected with our own country and style of architecture, and because its features of interest are in some degree less remarkable than those of the others, and one would wish to reserve the best for the last.

In one respect, moreover, two of these cities may well teach us a lesson. Nuremberg and Lübeck were to the world in the Middle Ages what London, Liverpool, and Manchester are to the world in this age: the very centres of all commerce for all Europe; and we may surely not do amiss if we take to ourselves, and ponder well upon, the lesson which the singular difference between their earnestness in matters of religion and ours ought to teach us. There was in these two old cities such an appreciation of the value of religious ordinances, and evidently so very great a readiness to provide places for their due celebration, that one cannot without a blush think upon the vast difference which such a city as Manchester displays, with its almost countless thousands of poor wretches uncared for and unthought of, and without any power of putting foot even in the sanctuaries of their God.

In the great Middle Age cities this never could have been the case, for apart from the fact that their churches stood with their doors ever open, while ours are ever jealously kept shut, they were so vast and spacious, and so crowded together, as it seems to us, that there never could have been a real difficulty in finding some home for the feet of the weary, how poor and how miserable soever they might be!

And Lübeck still shows this most grandly: you approach by a railway through an uninteresting country, passing one of those lakes which give much of its character to this dreary part of Germany, and suddenly dashing through a cutting, and under the shade of fine patriarchal trees which adorn on all sides the outskirts of the old city, you find yourself in such a presence of towers and spires as can scarce be seen elsewhere in Christendom. A succession of great churches standing up high and grand above the picturesque tall old houses which fringe the margin of the Trave, two of them presenting to us their immense west fronts of pure red brick, each finished with two great towers and spires, whilst others on either side rear their single spires and their turrets high against the sky, and here and there detached turrets mark where stands some other old building soon to be made acquaintance with; and all of these forming the background, as you first see it, to the most picturesque and grand old gateway--I am bold to say--in Europe, gives one a wonderful impression, vivid but dreamlike, and reminding one of those lovely cities with which Memling and his contemporary painters so often delight our eyes.

The plan of the city is simple enough. One great street runs the whole length of the peninsula on which it stands, from north to south, finished by the Burg-Thor, a fine old gateway, on the north, and by the cathedral and its close to the south. Right and left of this main street are a multitude of streets descending to the water which almost surrounds the whole town, and on the other side of the water are immense earth-works, rising really into respectable hills, and said to be the largest earth-works known; happily these great mounds--no longer useful for purposes of defence--are eminently so for ornament, and planted with great trees and laid out with walks and gardens form one of the most pleasant features of the place; on the outer side of those earth-works another line of water gives one certainly a very watery impression of the whole city.

The main features of interest to an architect are in the principal street. Beginning at the extreme south is the cathedral with its two towers and spires standing alone and forlorn in the most deserted part of the town, and even in the busiest days of Lübeck scarcely so near to the bulk of the people as a cathedral should ever be; then on either side we pass the churches of S. Giles and S. Peter, and going along under the walls of the picturesque old Rathhaus find ourselves close to the east end of the Marien-Kirche--a cathedral in dignity of proportions and outline, and here superior to the cathedral in its central position and in its greater height and general magnificence; next, the Katerinen-Kirche is left a few steps to the right, then S. James’s is passed, another tall spire, and then the west front of the very interesting Heiligen Geist Hospital; and a hundred yards further on we are in front of the relics of the Burg-Kloster, and close to this find ourselves at the Burg-Thor, a picturesque gateway second only in effect to the Holsteiner gate which I have before mentioned as terminating one of the cross streets which lead to the railway. The Burg-Thor stands just at the neck of the peninsula, and beyond it is the Burg-Feld, a wood intersected with paths, and looking rather like the Thier-Garten outside the Brandenburg gate at Berlin.

And now to describe the architectural beauties of the town we must go back to the cathedral, and as in duty bound begin with what is at once the oldest and the chief in rank of the ecclesiastical buildings.

The tradition is that this church, dedicated in honour of SS. John Baptist and Nicolas, is built on the spot where Henry the Lion, when engaged in the chase, fell in with a stag having a cross growing between its horns and a collar of jewels round its neck, with the produce of which the church was first in part built. There is some account of a church older than this, and octangular in form, having existed near the cathedral about the middle of the seventeenth century; it cannot however have been older by many years than some parts of the cathedral, as the first foundation of the present city seems to have been laid in the middle of the eleventh century, and the cathedral was consecrated in A.D. 1170 by Henry, the third Bishop of Lübeck, having been founded by Henry the Lion, who in A.D. 1154 translated Gerold, Bishop of Oldenburg, and made him the first Bishop of Lübeck; possibly the destroyed octangular church may have been the baptistery of the cathedral, as at this date baptisteries of this shape are not unfrequently met (e.g. at Cremona and Pisa), and I know of but one case of a church of such a plan.

Of the present cathedral, the most ancient portions appear to be the lower part of the steeples and the main arcades throughout. These are all Romanesque, though under the original arches pointed arches have been since inserted. The piers are heavy and square, and the whole effect is poor and ungainly.

Next in date is a magnificent porch on the north side of the north transept, which is altogether about the best piece of architecture in Lübeck, and remarkable as showing much more freedom in the use of stone than is found elsewhere. The shafts are of marble, and the arches and groining-ribs are all of stone, and, on the exterior, stone capitals and shafts are also used, whilst the brick work is far superior to that in any of the later examples. I fear I must say that this one remnant of the art of the thirteenth century is by far the most beautiful thing now left in the city. The sculpture on the inner door is very masterly in its character, but unfortunately the whole porch is now most neglected and uncared for.

Besides this porch there is little to notice in the exterior, save that the brick work of the transept front over the porch savours of the Italian mode of treating gables with deep cornices and traceries, and that the two great brick steeples at the west end are fine examples of a kind of steeple of which the city possesses however others much finer. The spires are not ancient; the whole exterior is of red brick.

In the interior of the church the most interesting features are the choir-screen and loft, and the rood. The screen stands at the east side of the transept crossing, whilst the rood is supported on an elaborately carved beam, which spans the _western_ arch of the crossing, and the effect is most singular and certainly very piquant; the whole being in a very late but good style, with figures remarkably well sculptured. Under the screen is an altar, and on either side still remains another. They are of stone supported on brick work, and there is no mark of piscina, or of lockers, or places for relics in them. The rood, and the figures of SS. Mary and John, are on a very large scale, so that altogether, with their supports, they reach nearly the whole height of the arch under which they stand.