While we are on the spot it may be well to observe the burial-ground near us, where lie the remains of generation after generation of former inhabitants of the town. Reader, let thy foot tread lightly hereabout, for the dust it presses on is all that remains of the earthly portion of creatures once breathing and living like yourself. What a lesson is afforded us when we contemplate, on the one hand the works of men of ages long past, but still standing as monuments of their skill and piety, and on the other the graves of the silent dead; the heads which planned and the hands which executed, where are they? Long since consigned to earth. All must feel, more or less, the influence of impressions to which such thoughts and scenes give rise, and may such feelings cause us to remember that we are but dust, and that we must, perhaps soon, become as those who lie beneath our feet!
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"Our time is fixed, and all our days are numbered, How long, how short, we know not."—Blair. |
The church-yard has been closed from burials for some years, and a cemetery has been formed a short distance from the town for the use of both parishes, as well as for the precincts which are extra-parochial. Many of the gravestones have been laid down, others removed, but a few inscriptions might be found which would afford food for meditation to those who may feel inclined to examine them.
At the commencement of our survey we examined the western front, and will now turn our attention to the remains of the north-west Transept. Some persons have doubted whether this wing ever existed, but Sir. G.G. Scott, in his able Lecture on the Cathedral, delivered at the Etheldreda Festival in October, 1873, gave good reasons for believing that it was built at the same time as the Tower and the south wing; and we cannot but think the ruins give strong evidence of its having been similar in all respects to that on the south side. There is in this, as in the other, a grand semicircular arch on the eastern side, and portions of another which probably communicated with some chapel, of which however there are neither remains nor record. It would appear that after the fall of the original wing a new building was begun on the same spot, not however of the same dimensions, and carried but a few feet and then discontinued. A band of panelling in the western face of the buttress corresponds with the work on the monument of Bishop Redman, who died in 1505, but the fall of the Transept took place some years, probably a century, before that. The arches built within the original arches of the Tower to afford additional support are believed to have been erected in the early part of the fifteenth century.
We have reasons to hope that steps will ere long be taken to raise a fund towards rebuilding this Transept;[52] which would indeed be a grand improvement, and worthy the support, not only of the Diocese of Ely but of the nation at large.
A good view of the Nave may be obtained as it is unobstructed through its whole length. A band of treble billet moulding runs under the lower windows; a double hatched moulding under the second tier; and immediately below the parapet is the ornament called the corbel table; these with the billet moulding round the clerestory windows, are in excellent preservation. The parapet on the wall of the aisle is embattled, that above the clerestory windows is plain. Although at one time battlements ran the whole length on both sides, those on the north were removed nearly one hundred years ago. The windows in the clerestory retain their original form, but those of the two lower tiers have been altered. Over one of the lower windows there appears a date (1662), probably referring to the period of some important repairs or alterations on this side. The removal of the ruins of the old Church of St. Cross, which stood near this spot, took place in the reign of Elizabeth, when the use of the Lady Chapel was granted to the parish of Holy Trinity.
We next turn our attention to the Octagon, which forms a grand central point from which radiate the four principal parts of the church—the Nave, the Choir, and the north and south arms of the Transept. Here originally stood a large square Norman Tower, which fell down in 1322, and was replaced by the present building; it is not an exact octagon, having four longer sides adjoining the four main portions of the building, and four shorter sides at the angles. The design was a grand one, but whether it was ever fully carried out is somewhat doubtful, the stone-work is carried up to a height a little above the roof of the Nave, &c., but the Lantern above is of English oak covered with lead. From a strong buttress, surmounted by a pinnacle, at each of the angles formed by the walls of the Nave and Choir aisles with those of the Transept spring two massive flying buttresses, abutting octagonal turrets at each angle of the Octagon; these turrets were probably originally designed to be finished with pinnacles, and thus form a corona; between them runs a pierced parapet formerly surmounted by a bold cresting of leaves and other ornaments; and there are bases of pillars at the cardinal points. These pinnacles with the cresting have just been completed in Clipsham stone, by Mr. Wood, of Ely, in a manner highly creditable to his skill, and greatly to the improvement of the appearance of the building. Beneath the parapet, instead of a corbel table, there is a deep hollow, with running leaves, and small ball flowers at intervals. The sides of the Octagon are adorned with an arcade of pointed arches, some of which are pierced and glazed to admit light; the longer sides have six, and the shorter three, of these arches. In each of the turrets is a winding stair communicating respectively with the main parts of the building. The Lantern above is of two stories, the lower, (which is open to the interior of the Octagon) is lighted by windows assimilating with the large windows in the angles of the Octagon; the upper story is lighted by louvres as adapted to a belfry, for which purpose this chamber was originally designed; the lower windows have been reconstructed, a series of flying buttresses (which had been taken away) have been re-placed against the angle divisions, which are finished with embattled turrets instead of pinnacles, and between them runs an open-work parapet. The whole of the Lantern has been repaired, and the exterior wood work re-covered with lead.
The portion of the north Transept which fell down in 1699, although soon afterwards carefully restored, and the mouldings and ornaments nicely replaced, may yet be distinguished from the old work: the Tuscan door-arch, however, in its northern face, is quite out of place here, not according with the style of the building in which it is placed. The restorations were executed under the directions of Sir Christopher Wren. The northern face of the Transept shows two pairs of Norman windows, the second pair being longer than those in the lower tier; above these is an arcade of small arches, and over these are two high Perpendicular windows, which reach partly into the gable. Over the doorway in the eastern aisle is an original Norman window, and in the western aisle is a replaced one.
The west front of the Lady Chapel[53] is richly decorated with niches, and has a noble window, under which is an arcade of small arches formed entirely in the thickness of the wall, in the back of some of which may be seen traces of coloured decoration; the gable point is adorned with a niche rising above the pierced parapet running up the sides. On each side of the building are five large windows, the tracery of which is much decayed, having been executed in a softer kind of stone than the walls. Between each two windows is a deep projecting buttress surmounted by a crocketed pinnacle; at the angles are double buttresses, on which are two kinds of tabernacles, both are square and occupy the breadth of the buttress, the upper one is recessed in the body of the buttress, the lower one is open on three sides, and had small pillars at the front angles rising from the set-off and carrying the projecting canopy; the tops being finished with crocketed pinnacles. The east end is not so richly ornamented as the west; the window is a very fine one but not so large as the western one, and there are no niches on the sides nor beneath it.