The roof-shafts have a curious break in them at the impost-level of the triforium, where a face is carved upon them with a band above it. They are banded also by the impost-moulding of either storey, and by the upper string-course, and end in square-topped capitals a little short of the present roof. Throughout Archbishop Roger’s church the roof was probably flat, or slightly coved as at Peterborough. The corbels from which the roof-shafts spring are moulded and finished off with scrolls, and are placed at the level of the string-course, which is undercut; but on either side of the tower-arches the shafts have been shortened to a point above the string, which has been made continuous beneath them, and instead of corbels they have grotesque heads carved upon their ends. Beyond the westernmost roof-shaft there is a further shaft, which at first sight seems to have been the beginning of another bay, but the round moulding which rises from it runs up vertically instead of curving over to form an arch.
The western wall is far more impressive from within the church than from without, and shows the Early English style at its best. The three doorways have stilted segmental arches moulded with rounds, and their hood-moulds are continuous. Their shafts are single and engaged, and in the jambs are holes for the great bars which no doubt held the doors against the Scots in 1318. But if the doorways are plainer, the great lancets above are much richer, on this side than on the other. Their arches have more mouldings, their hood-moulds as well as the string-courses are enriched with the nailhead, the dog-tooth is used more profusely, and the piers are clusters of seven engaged shafts instead of five, banded at half their height and having behind them in both tiers passages which formerly communicated with the towers. The glass, by Burlison and Grylls, is worthy of its framing. It was put up to the memory of the late Bishop in 1886. In the lower tier “the earthly type” is represented by the Parable of the Ten Virgins. In the upper tier, in which the various designs represent “the Heavenly type,” the Bride is the Church, and Our Lord is seen enthroned and surrounded by choirs of angels.
The yellow gritstone of the older work is contrasted curiously with the white limestone of the Perpendicular nave, and at the junction the later builders have left a jagged edge. Among very late Gothic buildings there are few indeed which are of so good a quality as this nave of Ripon, which, like the late church towers of Somerset, shows that mediæval art took long to die out in regions remote from London. It is, indeed, the architecture of the days of Agincourt rather than of the eve of the English Renaissance. The pillars are characteristic of the Perpendicular style, their section being a square with a semi-circle projecting from each side, and the corners hollowed. Their bases have complex plinths of considerable height and are polygonal, but follow roughly the form of the pillar, and the mouldings, as usual in this style, overhang the plinth. The capitals, with small mouldings and many angles, are of somewhat the same form as the bases. On the westernmost complete pillar of the north arcade are two shields, charged respectively with the arms of Ripon (a horn) and of Pigott of Clotherholme. The arches, instead of being of that depressed form which is so common in late work, are very beautifully proportioned, and their mouldings are bold, numerous and well-cut. There is no triforium; but a passage, at a slightly lower level than in Archbishop Roger’s bays, runs below the great clearstorey windows, which were once, no doubt, gorgeous with stained glass. Their arches are moulded, but the splay is left plain. The roof-shafts, which are in clusters of three and have fillets upon them, spring from semi-octagonal corbels, and where each cluster passes the string-course there is an angel holding a shield. A sign of decadence may be found, perhaps, in the way in which the hood-moulds of the windows intersect with these shafts. Though the two sides of the nave are not quite of the same date, they are almost alike, but for some slight differences in the capitals, the arch-mouldings, and the hollows on the pillars; the builders feeling doubtless that any marked variation would mar the general perspective—a consideration which, of course, could not bind them in designing the north aisle. The original Perpendicular roof may have resembled that which now covers the transepts. About 1829 Blore put up an almost flat ceiling of deal. The present oaken vault, by Sir Gilbert Scott, was copied from that of the transepts of York Minster, and is adapted to the old roof-shafts, between which have been added angel corbels of wood. As the ribs intersect near their springing, they weave a network over the whole vault, and the carved bosses at the intersections amount to 107. A passing notice is merited by the pulpit, which is Jacobean.
Ronald P. Jones, Photo.]
THE NAVE, LOOKING WESTWARDS.
East of the five Perpendicular bays remains the second fragment of the old nave, namely, a portion of a broad bay, partly encased by the later masonry, and one complete narrow bay. In the latter the tympanum on both sides is relieved by a quatrefoil, which here is pierced and not enclosed in a circle, and the last shaft eastwards (one of those of the comprising arch) runs to the ground. Affixed to the north wall is an eighteenth century monument to Hugh Ripley, last Wakeman and first Mayor of Ripon (d. 1637). The original monument was destroyed during the Civil War, but the altar-like erection below the present structure was probably part of it. The roof-shaft west of this bay, for some unknown reason, ends considerably short of the roof in a kind of corbel with rude foliage upon it. In the south wall is a triangular piscina, which, if it is of Roger’s date, is among the oldest piscinæ in the country.
