“The poet is represented lying on his back, with his hands joined in prayer, and his head resting upon the three volumes on which his fame depends, the Speculum Meditantis, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis. He is vested in a long dark habit, buttoned down to the feet, after the manner of a cassock, the ordinary dress of an English gentleman at the time. There is a garland of four roses round his head, and at his feet a lion couchant. The SS. collar adorns the neck, with a pendant jewel, on which a swan is engraved—the device of Richard II., to whom Gower was Poet Laureate. On the wall of the canopy, at the foot of the tomb, there is a sculptured and coloured representation of the poet’s own shield of arms, crest and helmet. On the back wall of the recess, above the effigy, there were formerly three painted figures, representing Charity, Mercy, and Piety, each bearing a scroll with an invocation, in Norman-French, for the soul of the departed. After undergoing repainting more than once, with modifications, the figures were scarcely recognisable in 1832, when the monument was repaired, but the figures were unfortunately obliterated. The inscription along the ledge of the tomb, which had also been destroyed, is now replaced: ‘Hic jacet I. Gower, Arm. Angl: poeta celeberrimus ac hoc sacro benefac. insignis. Vixit temporibus Edw. III., Ric. II., et Henri IV.’”—(Geo. W.)
Now we have reached the North Transept, supposed to have been originally a chapel dedicated to St. Peter. It is now used as a sort of museum for the relics and antiquities of the church—old bosses, chests, stone-coffins, etc. The large north window was unveiled in 1898 to commemorate doubly the Prince Consort and Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. Its four lights depict Gregory the Great, King Ethelbert, Stephen Langton and William of Wykeham.
Passing to the tower we can now look upward as far as the floor of the bell-ringers. The bosses on the new oaken roof date from the Fifteenth Century. From it hangs a fine Chandelier of 1680.
The South Transept was rebuilt by Cardinal Beaufort, whose arms we see on a pier by the transept door. The great south window of five lights, described by Sir Arthur Blomfield, the designer, as “transitional between Flowing Decorated and Perpendicular,” is filled with modern glass. The design is a “Tree of Jesse.”
Returning now to the Choir we pause here to study it in detail. It was built by Peter de Rupibus in the Thirteenth Century, and is Early English. It consists of five bays. The piers are alternate circular and octagonal, with plain capitals and well-cut base mouldings. Four arched openings occur in each bay of the triforium. Corbels with sculptured heads occur on the arches of the south side.
The Altar stands on a platform and above it rises the wonderful Screen, erected by Bishop Fox in 1520. It almost fills the entire eastern end of the choir.
“The screen is about thirty feet in height, and extends to the main arcades on either side. Three tiers of canopied niches, ten in each tier, divided down the centre by a Perpendicular series of three large niches, all occupied by statues, made up a composition which was at once ‘a thing of beauty’ and an object lesson on the Incarnation. The total number of niches (thirty-three) suggested a mystic reference to the years of our Lord’s earthly life, while the image of the Pelican ‘in her piety,’ here and there, besides being a reminder of Bishop Fox (whose peculiar device it was), also typified the sacrament of the altar. The original materials of which the screen was built are quoted as ‘Caen and fire-stone,’ for which Mr. Wallace substituted stone from Painswick in Gloucestershire, as more easily obtained and agreeing in colour with the old work.
“The doors on each side will be noticed, with their depressed ogee headings, which indicate that this screen is of somewhat later date than the corresponding one (also by Bishop Fox) at Winchester. Another indication to the same effect has been detected in the grotesque carvings in the spandrels, which are here of a humorous character, whereas at Winchester the minor decorations are entirely sacred, e.g., the Annunciation and Visitation.”—(Geo. W.)
The East Window above contains three lancets, the glass representing the Crucifixion in the centre with St. John on one side and the Virgin on the other. It is placed in a quintuple arcade. The prevailing colour is blue.
On the north side of the choir under the first arch we notice the Monument of Richard Humble, a good specimen of the Jacobean period. Here, under an arched canopy, Richard Humble is kneeling before an altar, with his two wives behind him. The second one wears a conical hat.