SALISBURY CATHEDRAL
THE Cathedral of Saint Mary at Salisbury is not filled with gilding and warm color as the churches of southern Europe are. Its builders aimed rather at simplicity such as their forefathers used—plain gray walls, unornamented columns and arches, and few paintings. The edifice seems to reflect the antique dignity of those upright pillars of the Druids at Stonehenge, which is not far from Salisbury. Here we have the outcome of British race feeling in splendidly finished architecture placed almost side by side with that early crude expression of it.
The cathedral was begun in 1220 by Richard Poore, the bishop at Old Sarum, who was so much annoyed by the officers of the king that he decided to move the church to a site on his own land which has since been named Salisbury. Old Sarum Cathedral, built on a bleak hill, had suffered for lack of water. In his choice of a foundation Bishop Poore went to the other extreme; for the swampy fields by the Avon, on which this new cathedral was erected, were so often flooded that services sometimes had to be suspended for days.
The beautiful Lady Chapel was built in five years. The entire building, except the spire, which was not in the original plan, took only forty-six years to complete. It was consecrated in 1266. But when the spire was erected the architect in charge failed to strengthen the foundations sufficiently. The pillars and arches bulged; for they had never been intended to support such weight. In spite of arches walled up and buttresses built, the tower sagged nearly two feet toward the south, and has remained in that position ever since.
Though simplicity and calmness are characteristic of the original Salisbury Cathedral, they have been emphasized to the point of bareness by the restoration of James Wyatt, who destroyed nearly all the stained glass windows, two chapels, and a belfry, and moved many of the tombs. There are niches in the cathedral for over a hundred statues, which for some reason were nearly empty at the middle of the last century. The statues now in place are almost all modern: sculptured, however, with a view to holding the original significance of the architecture. They are arranged to represent the Te Deum.
BEAUTIFUL BUILDINGS OF THE WORLDChâteau de Chambord
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