Watson, Ripon, Photo.]
The Resurrection. St. Wilfrid. The Coronation of the Virgin.
ANCIENT SCULPTURES PRESERVED IN THE CHAPTER-HOUSE.
Near the modern hearth is a case of curiosities found about the church, among them several fourteenth or fifteenth century reliefs in alabaster, representing the Resurrection, the Coronation of the Virgin, the story of Herodias, and the figure of a bishop, probably St. Wilfrid, with a curious P-shaped implement on his arm.
At the north end of the cross-wall it will be observed that the blocked doorway noticed in the choir-aisle was not round-headed on this side, but segmental. The square-headed doorway in the cross-wall itself is modern, and opens into a lobby, the opposite side of which is formed by the Decorated buttress whose lower portion was noticed in the crypt, while on the left is the doorway into the choir, and on the right another square-headed doorway, opening into the vestry.
The Vestry.—Before the erection of the cross-wall the vaulting evidently extended eastward continuously to the apse, which still contains a fragment of it with two corbels, while further traces, including another corbel, may be seen upon the south wall. Its removal may have taken place either when the two Decorated buttresses were introduced, or at the erection of the Lady-loft, or possibly much later; but was doubtless contemporaneous with the building of the cross-wall, which was evidently intended not only as a partition, but as a ‘stop’ for the portion of the vaulting that was retained. The present ceiling was put up by Sir Gilbert Scott, who, it is said, would have restored the vaulting had funds allowed. Of the buttresses, that adjoining the doorway has in its front, as well as in the side toward the lobby, a small trefoiled and moulded recess. These two buttresses are built against the piers of the arcading, part of the last arch of which is visible behind the cupboard.
In the same cupboard may be observed, scarcely above the floor, a wide stone ledge with a bold moulding worked along the front. If the floor can ever have been lower than it is now, this ledge may have been used as a bench. In itself, it is of course the set-off on which the piers of the arcading stand. Now it will be remembered that the portion of Archbishop Roger’s wall-base visible from the graveyard (between the choir and the apse) has at the top a wide set-off or slope. This ledge in the vestry, then, seems to be level with the base of that slope, where moreover there is a moulding similar to that found here; also the front of the ledge here seems to be flush with Archbishop Roger’s masonry there.
If, then, the work there is his,[113] the above considerations afford some reason surely for the belief that this set-off on which the piers of the arcading stand, and perhaps also the uppermost courses of the wall beneath it, are Archbishop Roger’s work. Nor is it improbable that this set-off once had a slope, of which that above-mentioned was the continuation, and out of which the buttresses (i.e., the arcade piers) rose after the manner of those on the other side of the choir—in fact, that Archbishop Roger intended to make this wall the exterior of his church by demolishing the crypt, vestry, and Chapter-house; and that it was only after some such idea had been conceived and abandoned, that the arches were thrown across from buttress to buttress, the vaulting constructed against them, this ledge formed (by cutting away the slope of the set-off), and the stone benches carried along the wall of the Chapter-house.