Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Ripon / A Short History of the Church and a Description of Its Fabric

by Cecil Walter Charles Hallett

Ronald P. Jones, Photo.]

THE WESTERN ARCH OF THE CENTRAL TOWER.

The planning of the Cathedral is remarkably irregular. Not only is the axis of the choir, as in so many churches, inclined (here toward the north) but the centre of the Rood Screen is south of the axis of the nave, and the north side of the tower is not parallel to the south side, the north-west angle being less than a right angle. This is the only angle which remains in its original condition, and here the responds of the two adjacent arches stand upon one circular plinth, their own bases being, however, rectangular, though following in the upper mouldings the forms of the shafts. The capitals of the latter are, as usual, square-topped. The respond of the western arch has a semicircular shaft upon the front, and a smaller shaft at the west side, where the pier is twice recessed. The arch itself springs from the level of the top of Archbishop Roger’s triforium, is semicircular, and has more orders toward the west than toward the east, but the mouldings (chiefly rounds) are lacking in boldness, and the absence of a hood-mould (both in this arch and the other) is a disadvantage. The other respond is concealed by a huge Perpendicular casing, which, obtruding as it does into the arch, is a very conspicuous object in the view from the west doors. Upon the piers of this arch toward the nave are some curious brackets, which probably supported the original rood-beam.[84]

The northern arch springs from a higher level, and is less richly decorated than the other, and its form is almost segmental. It has more orders toward the south than toward the north, and again the mouldings are chiefly rounds. Its western respond has a shaft on the front, and at the south side another, which is banded at the springing-level of the western arch and carried up to that of the northern arch, where it ends in a three-sided capital, upon which stands another and very short shaft, complete with base and capital, that carries the rim of the arch and an angle of masonry that projects from the corner. The lower portion of this respond is cased by a rectangular addition (almost as old as the pier itself), which has upon the front a massive detached shaft with a circular capital, on which stands a quaint figure of King James I., brought from the screen of York Minster. To support an image of some kind may, perhaps, have always been the purpose of this pillar. It has been suggested that there is a similar projection concealed behind the casing of the south-western pier.

Over these two arches is a bold cornice, which possibly once supported a ceiling, and the blind storey above shows in each wall two pairs of plain lancets with the impost-moulding continued as a string, and with a passage behind. In the third storey, where again there is a passage, the two windows in each wall have a third arch (also round) between them, and alternating with these three arches are little lancets which have been blocked as far up as the imposts, their shafts having been first removed. A cornice supports the ceiling, and on the west side there are also some rather inexplicable corbels.

The builders of this tower were certainly misguided in employing round arches to support it, at a time when (as the choir shows) pointed arches of considerable size were in common use, and it would seem that the superior strength of the latter form was not yet fully realized. No stronger specimens of that form are to be found, perhaps, than the arches that support the two remaining sides. Their giant piers are clusters of engaged cylindrical shafts with rounded hollows between, and at each remodelled angle of the tower the two adjacent responds are treated as one whole, presenting seven shafts almost on the same plane. The bases, with their complex plinths and overhanging upper mouldings, are over five feet high, and the capitals are polygonal, with small and shallow mouldings, of which the lowest follows the form of the pier. Slightly stilted, richly moulded, and of many orders, these arches are so lofty as to leave no room for a blind storey above. Though the windows here are set higher in the wall, their rear-arches reach down nearly to the Transitional sill-level. Between the two windows in either wall a shaft springs from an angel corbel at the string-course below the sills, and runs up in a kind of groove, and these two shafts, with another which springs from the junction of the two great arches, end short of the present ceiling in semi-octagonal capitals, while on the east wall, and at a lower level, there are more corbels. Indeed, from the various corbels and shafts in this storey it would seem that the level of the ceiling had been altered, possibly more than once, and perhaps that it was destined to be altered again when the remodelling should be complete. The present ceiling, flat and painted with good effect, was put up by Sir Gilbert Scott.

The Transepts.—The length of either transept is 43 feet, and that of both together (including the crossing) is 134 feet, or about the same as the length of the nave. In the transepts and choir the relative proportion of the three storeys or stages to one another, which in the nave was so remarkable, becomes more ordinary, and the change in the level of the triforium passage—due to the heightening of the lowest stage to meet the exigencies of aisles—necessitates long staircases (now blocked) behind the western piers of the tower: and the same is the case (though in a less degree) with the clearstorey, which in this part of the church is loftier, instead of being shorter, than the triforium. In either transept a bench-table runs along the west wall, and the large lower windows are plainly splayed, but have their sills stepped. The glass in them is bad, except some seventeenth century pieces in the window over the north door. The roof, which is of oak, and Perpendicular, had been concealed in the time of Blore by sham Norman vaulting constructed of papier maché. Sir Gilbert Scott removed this abomination and exposed the old ceiling, which he repaired and partially renewed. It is almost flat, is raised on wooden figure-corbels, which prevent it from intersecting with the tower arches, and is adorned with judicious colour.

The North Transept, which is 34 feet wide, or 52 feet if the ‘aisle’ be included, is almost as its builders left it, and is among the most famous examples of the architecture of the age of Henry II. and Thomas à Becket, when the early English style was being developed from the Norman. As the details are the same here as in all Archbishop Roger’s work, they need no further description. To take the west and north walls first, the Perpendicular arch opening into the aisle of the nave cuts into two blocked round arches, of which that on the right was a window, while that on the left is backed by the old nave wall; and in this first bay (which is narrower than the others in both this and the opposite wall) the triforium arches are blocked up, as well as the first lancet in the clearstorey, where there is moreover no window. Each bay shows in the triforium two pointed arches with a pierced quatrefoil between them, and in the clearstorey a stilted round arch, pierced and glazed, between two smaller arches of lancet form, which on the north wall are very curiously barred across at the impost level, the abaci of two shafts being formed by one slab.