York Minster: West front
York Minster: South
is one of the finest of all. Even the absence of pinnacles, if it is an accident, seems to be a lucky accident, and gives this tower an unrivalled dignity and an air of restraint suitable to the character of the whole cathedral.”—(A. C.-B.)
We enter the Cathedral by the south door of the South Transept and are introduced to what is considered one of the most superb architectural views in the world. The enormous width of the church and length of the transepts and the tremendous lantern produce almost the effect of St. Paul’s or St. Peter’s. Neither the east nor the west end is visible, for we are looking right across the arms of the crossing straight to the north end of the transept, where the Five Sisters display their jewels.
The Lantern is very lofty—180 feet from the floor—each transept is four bays long—223 feet from north to south—and 93 feet wide. To the top of the roof they measure 99 feet.
“The transepts, therefore, are unusually prominent, even for an English cathedral, and they have many other unusual features. Taken in conjunction with the lantern, they produce an effect to be found in no other Gothic church in the world. In England there are none so wide and so lofty. In France there are interiors even loftier, but in France the transepts are seldom a prominent feature of the design. Often they do not project beyond the outer wall of the aisles of the nave, and oftener still there is no central tower large enough to allow of a lantern at all. It is a great piece of good fortune, also, that the five vast lancets of the north transept end, known as the Five Sisters, still keep their beautiful original glass. If we look at these windows and consider how utterly ineffective they would be if they were glazed with plain glass, we can understand how little remains of the original beauty of the interior of Salisbury.
“The Five Sisters are, no doubt, the largest lancet windows in England, and it was a bold idea to fill almost the whole of that great front with them, but the boldness was entirely justified by the result.