The cathedral was restored 1853-7, in good taste, at a cost of about £15,000. Mr. Ewan Christian, the architect of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, undertook the work, and happily succeeded in counteracting the "repairing and beautifying" of 1764.
Carlisle is not a large or notable cathedral, but its delightful Early English choir with its magnificent east window will ever redeem it from being insignificant or uninteresting.
CHAPTER II
THE EXTERIOR
On examining the north side of the cathedral, it is apparent that more than one plan has been followed in the construction of the building as it stands.
There are the remains of a Norman nave whose roof is lower than the choir roof. The choir is Early English with clerestory windows, and the easternmost bay (the retro-choir) Late Decorated; while the tower is Perpendicular. In the north window of the north transept we have a specimen of work of the nineteenth century. Thus the cathedral supplies examples of architecture from the Norman period down to the present time.
The moderate height of the Nave (65 ft.), and the treatment of its details, are quite characteristic of the best work of the period when it was erected.
The bays of the aisle are separated by flat buttresses about five and a half feet wide projecting nearly one foot beyond the wall, and the parapet wall in which they terminate is supported above the windows by a corbel table of shields and trefoil heads.[[2]]