The Cathedral was commenced in 1220 by Bishop Poore and took about forty years to build, but this period did not include the erection of the tower and spire which were later additions. The fine and generally admired west front is, from an architect's point of view, the only part of the exterior that is not admirable. It is in actual fact, fraudulent, just as the whole of the upper wall of St. Paul's Cathedral is an artistic untruth. The west wall of Salisbury is a screen without professing to be one. The porches are very small in relation to the great flattish expanse of masonry above them; the dullness of this was much relieved by the series of statues placed in the empty niches about the middle of the last century. The original medieval figures almost all disappeared through the zeal of the Puritans.
Even the most careless glance down the long outline of the walls, artistically broken by the two transepts, but never losing the regular continuity of design, will show the observer that this perfect Early English building was an inspiration of one brain and that the many hands that worked for that brain carried out their tasks as a religious rite. The glory of the tower as we see it was not part of the original plan, though that undoubtedly included some such crown and consummation of the noble work beneath. But although the tower and spire are of a later period—the Decorated, they blend so harmoniously with the earlier building that all might have arisen in one twelve months instead of being labours spread over one hundred years. The rash courage which raised this great pyramid of stone, four hundred and four feet above the sward, on the slender columns and walls that have actually bowed under the great weight they uphold, has often been commented upon. It has been said that the tower would have fallen long ago had it not been for the original scaffolding that remains within to tie and strengthen it. In the eighteenth century a leaden casket was discovered by some workmen high in the spire, containing a relic of our Lady, to whom the Cathedral is dedicated. In the summer of 1921 the steeplejacks employed to test the lightning conductor found that the iron cramps had rusted to such an extent as to split the stonework. A band of iron within the base of the spire in process of rusting is said to have raised the great mass of stone fully half an inch. The iron is now being replaced by gun-metal.
The great church is entered by the north porch, and the immediate effect of august beauty is not at first tempered by the impression of coldness that gradually makes itself felt as we compare, from memory, the interior with that of Winchester or even some of the less important churches we have visited. But this is perhaps only a temporary fault, and when the windows of the nave are rejewelled with the glorious colours that shone from them before the Reformation, the cold austerity of this part of the great church will largely disappear. The extreme orderliness of the architectural conception, the numberless columns and arches ranged in stately rows, vanishing in almost unbroken perspective, make Salisbury unique among English cathedral interiors. An old rhyme gives the building as many pillars, windows, and doors as there are hours, days, and months in the year.
In addition to his other questionable traits, James Wyatt must have had something of the Prussian drill-sergeant in his nature. Under his "restoration" scheme the tombs of bishops and knights that once gave a picturesque confusion to the spaces of the nave were marshalled into precise and regular order in two long lines between the columns on each side. For congregational purposes this was and is an advantage, but Wyatt actually lost one of his subjects in the drilling process and so confused the remainder that the historical sequence is lost.
It is not proposed to describe these tombs in detail. A glance at the sketch plan on the preceding page will make the position of each quite clear. Especially notice should be given to (10) William Longespee, 1st Earl of Salisbury; (14) Robert, Lord Hungerford; (13) Lord Charles Stourton, who was hanged in Salisbury Market Place with a silken halter for instigating the murder of two men named Hartgill, father and son. A wire noose representing the rope used to hang above the tomb. (3) The reputed tomb of a "Boy Bishop," but possibly this is really a bishop's "heart shrine." Salisbury seems to have been in an especial sense the home of the singular custom of electing a small lad as bishop during the festival of Christmas. According to Canon Fletcher in his pleasant little book on the subject lately published, no less than twenty-one names are known of Boy Bishops who played the part in this cathedral. Several modern memorials of much interest upon the walls of the nave explain themselves. One, to the left of the north porch as we enter, is to Edward Wyndham Tempest, youthful poet and "happy warrior" who was killed in the late war. Another will remind us that Richard Jefferies, although buried at Broadwater in Sussex, was the son of a North Wilts yeoman and a native of the shire.
The arches at the western transepts will be found to differ from those of the nave; they were inserted to support the weight of the tower by Bishop Wayte in 1415 and are similar to those at Canterbury and Wells. A brass plate was placed in the pavement during the eighteenth century to mark the inclination of the tower, 22½ inches to the south-west. It is said that the deflection has not altered appreciably for nearly two hundred years. The exactness of the correspondence of the architecture in the transepts to that of the nave almost comes as a surprise by reason of its rarity to those who are acquainted with other English cathedrals, and brings before one very vividly the homogeneity of the design. A number of interesting monuments, several of them modern, occupy the two arms of the transepts. The choir roof-painting, sadly marred by Wyatt, has been restored to something of its former beauty, but it would seem that time alone can give the right tone to mural decoration in churches, for there is now an effect of harshness, especially farther east in the so-called Lady Chapel, that is not at all pleasing. The screen of brass leading to the choir, the greater part of the stalls, and the high altar and reredos, are seen to be modern. The altar occupies its old position and was restored as a memorial to Bishop Beauchamp (1482). The Bishop's chantry was destroyed by Wyatt, who had shifted the altar to the extreme end of the Lady Chapel, if we may use the name usually given to the eastern extension of the Cathedral, but as the dedication of the whole building is to the Virgin, that part may have been called originally the Jesus, or Trinity Chapel. On the north side of the choir is the late Gothic chantry of Bishop Audley and opposite is that of the Hungerfords, the upper part of iron-work. On the north side of the altar is the effigy of Bishop Poore, founder of the Cathedral; the modern one under a canopy is that of one of his late successors, Bishop Hamilton.
