How to Visit the English Cathedrals

by Esther Singleton

“In order to understand these wonderful sculptures more fully we refer to the Liber Eliensis which describes Etheldreda as hurrying away from Coldingham with two ladies, Sewenna and Sewara, and as reaching a rocky place on the coast where they were overtaken by the king, but the three ladies crossed the Humber and proceeded south, dressed as pilgrims. One night, while the queen slept, her staff, placed in the ground, burst into leaf and flower. On this spot a church was built and dedicated to St. Etheldreda. When the three pilgrims arrived in the Isle of Ely, they were joined by Wilfrid, the archbishop of York, who induced Etheldreda to take the veil. The miracle referred to in the south-west arch shows St. Etheldreda and St. Benedict appearing to a monk named Brytstan, who was charged with seeking refuge in a monastery in order to escape punishment for robberies of which he had been guilty. The miracle was told to Queen Matilda, who freed Brytstan.”—(W. D. S.)

The Screen separating the choir from the Octagon was designed by Scott. It is of oak, delicately carved in geometric patterns, and bearing a cross on the cresting that runs along the top. The gates are brass.

The first three bays of the choir were begun about 1240; the last six, forming the presbytery, were finished in 1340. The space of a hundred years thus lies between them.

“In the juxtaposition of these two magnificent specimens of the Early English and Decorated periods of architecture there is an opportunity of comparison which on such a scale occurs nowhere else. It is to be remembered that in neither case is the treatment of the upper part quite in accordance with the usual practice of the period. When the presbytery was being built there were still standing east of the central tower the four original bays of the Norman choir. These, it may be assumed, were very similar in character to those in the nave. There would, beyond question, have been in each bay large triforium arches, each with a couple of subordinate arches; and a single window in the clerestory with a blank arch on each side. Bishop Northwold’s work was purposely made to correspond with these bays as far as Early English work could do so; and when after the fall of the tower it became necessary to rebuild the choir, Bishop Hotham in like manner made his Decorated work correspond with the Early English presbytery. The choir is, as would be expected, richer in detail as well as more elaborate in design; and it would be difficult to find in England anything to surpass the tracery of the clerestory windows and triforium arches, the beautiful cusped inner arches of the clerestory range, the open parapets at the base of the two stages, or the long corbels, covered with foliage, that support the vaulting shafts. In the choir the clerestory windows have four lights each; in the presbytery are triplets. The old colouring has been renewed throughout. On the north side of the choir the three bays are precisely alike; but on the south there is a variation in the tracery of the western triforium arch. There are also shields of arms (of the See of Ely and of Bishop Hotham) in the spandrels of the triforium and arch below; and the shaft between this arch and the next is enlarged at the top into a base for a statue (probably of St. Etheldreda); while level with the string above is a very fine large canopy (called by the workmen ‘the table’), which is like nothing else in the cathedral. The clerestory windows also on the south have different tracery.

“The difference between the two styles of architecture is well marked in the groining of the roof, the Decorated portion being much more elaborate. Some of the bosses are very remarkable: one has St. Etheldreda with pastoral staff; one has the coronation of the Virgin Mary; one has the foundress bearing the model of a church, in which (as Dean Stubbs has pointed out) both arms of the western transept are represented, so that it is a fair inference that at the time this roof was constructed the whole of the western transept was standing.

“Between the choir and presbytery there rise the massive Norman piers built as the entrance to the apse; and these are the only remains of the Norman church east of the octagon.”—(W. D. S.)

The magnificent Choir-Stalls, with their beautiful canopies, are thought to be Walsingham’s work. They are considered the finest Decorated stalls in existence. The misereres show wonderful carvings.

The Reredos, of alabaster, designed by Scott, stands in the centre of the screen of stone that runs along the whole of the presbytery, the lower part of which is a diaper pattern and the upper portion an open arcade of six arches (Early Decorated style).

“The east end of Ely is the grandest example of the grouping of lancets.... Ely is also undoubtedly the head of all east ends and eastern limbs of that class in which the main body of the church is of the same height throughout, and in which the aisles are brought out to the full length of the building.”—(E. A. F.)

At the end of the north-choir-aisle we come to the Chapel of Bishop Alcock (died 1500), Bishop of Ely from 1486 to 1500. He was a great architect, built the great hall in the Bishop’s palace at Ely and also this very ornate chapel. It dates from 1488. The roof is composed of fan-tracery, with a large pendant; and the walls are covered with canopies, tabernacles, crockets, niches, panels and other decorations with lavish display. The figures have gone from the niches. A cock on a globe—Alcock’s rebus—occurs on the stone-work very frequently.