Manchester Cathedral.
CHOIR, MANCHESTER CATHEDRAL.
The see was founded in 1847. Externally and internally the cathedral is but a magnified parish church. The single western tower, the absence of a central tower, the extraordinary breadth of the interior, the absence of a triforium, the wooden roofs, all stamp it with parochialism. Indeed, the nave and aisles are still the parish church of Manchester, the cathedral proper being confined to the choir and its aisles. Looked at as a parish church and a collegiate church—for from 1426 it was both—it is a magnificent specimen of late English Gothic, dating from 1426 to 1520, when the ambition of architects was to make of their churches “stone-lanterns.” In the same accidental way as Chichester cathedral it has become possessed of picturesque double aisles, by the incorporation on either side of sets of chantries. The south aisle of Dorchester priory church had a similar origin. It has been so thoroughly “renovated” that it is practically a modern church. But it is very impressive. There is no jarring of styles. And the colour effects, externally and internally, are superb. Its woodwork, too—rood-screen, choir-screens, tabernacled stalls, misereres, and roofs—is of great richness and fine design. The whole church in its fortuitous picturesqueness appeals to one much more than the icy regularity of such churches as St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, or Bath Abbey.