Bath Abbey: Choir, west
with rectangular heads and each corner is ornamented by a heavy octagonal turret also terminating in octagonal pyramids decorated with crockets. Similar pyramids terminate the turrets that flank the sides of the east window of the choir.
There is no Lady-Chapel.
Let us survey the exterior:
“The nave consists of five bays. The clerestory windows are unusually lofty, and are divided by transoms; they are of five lights. Along the top of the clerestory wall is a battlemented, pierced parapet; but the pattern of the pierced openings differs from that of the parapet which runs along the top of the aisle walls. The aisles have five light windows without transoms; their heads are four centred arches; between each bay are projecting buttresses of three stages with gabled offsets, finished with crocketed pinnacles; against them rest flying-buttresses formed of a lower semi-arch, with a straight rectilinear truss. From the points where the arched flying-buttresses abut against the clerestory walls, vertical, slightly projecting buttresses are built upwards against the wall and rising above the parapet, are finished by crocketed pinnacles. The same design is carried right round the church. The clerestory of the transepts resembles those of the nave and the choir.”—(T. P.)
Entering, our first and general view is impressive, because of the fan-vaulting and height of the Nave. Owing to the absence of horizontal lines, the vault seems higher than it really is. There is no triforium. A string-course runs above the arches of the main arcade beneath the clerestory windows, which are unusually tall. On account of the enormous windows and the absence of painted glass, Bath Abbey received the name of the “Lantern of the West”; but now that the windows of the nave and choir-aisles have been supplied with painted lights, the name is less appropriate. The tracery of these windows is, of course, Perpendicular. The one in the south-transept is a thanksgiving for the recovery of the Prince of Wales in 1872. The lower lights depict the recovery of Hezekiah and the royal arms of the Prince and Princess of Wales and also those of the city of Bath. The upper part represents the Tree of Jesse. The great east and west windows have seven lights. The west window contains subjects from Old Testament history, and the east-window, representations of the life of Christ.
“There is little variety in the arches and shafts throughout the church. This repetition is a well-known feature in Perpendicular work. The piers have no general capital. The shaft which carries the inner order of the arch has a capital, and so, at the same level, have the vaulting-shafts of the high vault and that of the aisles. These shafts spring from the bases of the main pillars. The capitals at this level are plain, and so are the capitals of the vaulting-shafts of the nave from which the vaulting-ribs spring. But in the choir the place of these plain bands is taken by carved angels. Carved angels also form the termination of the hood-moulding of the lower windows of the south transept, and probably those of the north transept also, though these windows are hidden by the wooden pipes of the organ.
“Over the heads of the clerestory windows of the nave are small shields, and shields may also be seen in the centre of the fan-tracery in the nave, choir and transept. In the aisles the fan-tracery is somewhat different, as in the centre of each bay there is a pendant. The vaulting of the nave and its aisles and that of the south transept are modern, put up, under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott, to match the roof of the choir and its aisles and north transept respectively. The reredos was designed by the same architect. The oak screen across the eastern part of the south choir aisle is due to his son. The font is also modern. In fact, beyond the walls and the roofing of the eastern part of the church, there is little old about it. In the clerestory windows are a few fragments of Seventeenth-Century glass—heraldic shields.”—(T. P.)