At the south-west corner of this transept is the Galilee Porch. It will be remembered that the same name is also borne by two other celebrated porches in England, at Ely and Durham. Both of these are, however, at the western end of their respective churches. The origin of the name "Galilee" has had so many different explanations, that it would be tedious to give them here, but the name may have some reference to the room above the porch, in which the judicial Court of the Dean and Chapter was formerly held. The Galilee at Durham was built for women, who were not allowed to use the church. The porch at Lincoln was constructed about the year 1230, as a state entrance for the bishop, whose palace lay on the south side of the minster yard. The plan is in the form of a cross, and the porch may be entered at the south and west ends, both of which are open. An arcade of slender arches runs round the walls. At the end of the north limb the arches are open, and rest upon a low wall.
Photochrom Co. Ltd., Photo.]
The two stone coffin-covers in the pavement do not appear to have been originally placed here; they apparently date from the twelfth or thirteenth century. The porch has a stone vault, with a profusion of tooth ornament on the groins and elsewhere. Someone has left it on record that there are 5355 dog-tooth pyramids used in the decoration of the Galilee Porch alone. Two massive oak doors at the east end open into the transept; the doorway is richly carved with foliage and tooth ornament. In an engraving of the year 1672 this fine porch is shewn as walled up; it was used, in the last century, as a work-shop for the plumbers of the cathedral. The ground round the minster has been considerably lowered in recent years, and in this way the proportions of the building are displayed to greater advantage. In Wild's plan of 1819, a flight of steps is indicated by which the Galilee Porch was entered, but the lowering of the ground has caused their removal. Above this porch is the room in which the Chapter Archives are carefully preserved. An account of these is given by the Rev. Prebendary Wickenden in the thirty-eighth volume of the Archæological Journal. The cathedral plumbers seem to have been accommodated here after the porch below was reopened, until the year 1851, when the chamber was appropriated as the muniment room. For nearly a century before this the documents had been kept in what is now the singing-school over the vestry. The plan of the room is T-shaped, and it is lighted by eleven lancet windows rising from the floor; the walls are covered with Early English arcading. The documents have suffered considerably from damp and neglect, and some of them still bear traces of the time when George Huddleston, a priest-vicar in the early part of the seventeenth century, kept pigeons in the muniment room. The two most precious documents are now preserved in the cathedral library; one of the few existing contemporary copies of the Magna Charta, and a copy, made early in the twelfth century, of the Charter of William the Conqueror for the transference of the see from Dorchester to Lincoln. A charter from Edward I., of the year 1285, is also still preserved, by which permission is given to build walls round the close, and to shut the gates of the same at night. Lastly may be mentioned a series of Chapter Acts, nearly complete from 1305 to the present time, and audit accounts covering the same period.
The embattled parapet which surrounds the low modern roof is in the Perpendicular style, and is, of course, later than the structure itself.
Photochrom Co. Ltd. Photo.]
From a point a little westward of the Galilee Porch, the Central Tower is seen to advantage. Its early name of the "Rood Tower," from the rood-screen which fills the easternmost of the four great interior arches supporting it, has been corrupted into "Broad Tower." Very excellent authority could be brought forward for calling this the finest central tower of any English cathedral. The height to the top of the corner pinnacles is 271 feet, an altitude which is exceeded by only two cathedral spires in England, those of Salisbury and Norwich. The tall spire of timber, covered with lead, which originally crowned this tower reached an altitude, it is said, of 525 feet; but this is doubtful. This spire was blown down during a tempest in January 1547-8. The outside measurement of the sides of the tower is 54 ft. 6 in. This is not the first central tower of Lincoln. The original tower, of Norman work, was succeeded by a nova turris, which fell about the year 1237. The celebrated Grosseteste was bishop at the time, and the work of reconstruction would appear to have been begun almost immediately. The lower part of the present tower, both inside and out, bears the peculiar lattice-work ornament which has been noticed in the gable of the west front. Here, as there, it may be considered a mark of Grosseteste's time. The tower was then carried as high as the top of the arcading just over the ridge of the nave roof, and a wooden spire was added. In this state it appears to have remained for at least half-a-century. When the work was again taken in hand, in 1307, it was speedily completed, and by 1311 the tower was raised as high as we now see it. The two lofty windows which occupy each side of the upper storey, with their crocketed pillars and canopied heads, are extremely beautiful. At the four corners are octagonal panelled turrets, surmounted by wooden pinnacles coated with lead. The spire which fell in 1547-8 carried the parapet with it. In February 1715 three of the pinnacles were blown down; their re-erection was completed in 1728. Nearly fifty years later, the dean wrote to James Essex, the architect, asking his opinion about the erection of a stone spire. He replied that the height was too great and the situation too exposed, but recommended, instead, battlements and four stone pinnacles. In 1775, Essex was employed to erect the present open parapet. The western side was blown down in December 1883, but, falling inwards, it did little damage, and was easily replaced. The following details concerning the tower are copied from a pocket-guide to Lincolnshire by the late Sir Charles Anderson, Bart, (third edition, revised by Canon Maddison), a most interesting book containing much useful information:—"It was a bold undertaking, and executed with marvellous skill, for, in order to lessen the additional weight without building strengthening arches below, which would have injured the interior effect, as at Salisbury and Wells, two thin walls are tied together at intervals, so as to leave a vacuum between, bound by squinches at the top corners.... Compared with the great Victoria Tower of Westminster, which, from many points of view, looks broader at the top than the bottom, the Lincoln tower is the perfection of symmetrical proportion; the reason is that it is gathered in about 2-½ inches, 25 feet below the parapet, which shews upon what trifles, as they might be called, beauty and proportion depend." Wallcott describes this tower as "so full of state, and dignity, and majestic grandeur, that no church in England, or on the continent, can be cited in the same description."