CHOIR.
About the same time, or a little later, were built the central gable of the west front and the south-western spire.
VIII. Perpendicular and Tudor.—The equipment of the presbytery was completed, c. 1390, by the erection of a magnificent altar-screen after the fashion of those at Winchester and St. Albans. Six of its canopies are used up in the present sedilia. The northern spire also was copied from the southern one. More big windows were inserted in the transepts and the west end of the nave. The latter has been replaced by a modern geometrical window; that of the north transept by a fine quintet of lancets, largely composed of fragments of the original thirteenth-century window. Finally, the whole cathedral was rendered fireproof by the erection of vaults under both transepts and the central tower. The south transept, however, would seem to have had a vault before—but it may have been of wood—for a little lower than the Perpendicular abacus of the vaulting-shaft is one of the thirteenth century. To this period belongs the gallery of St. Chad’s chapel.
IX. In the two sieges the clerestory and aisle windows and the vault of the choir suffered greatly, and the central spire was destroyed. The latter was rebuilt under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren; and Perpendicular windows replaced those which had been injured here and in the Lady chapel. So that the choir now is a curious hybrid: the most eastern bay is Curvilinear from top to bottom; the next bays are Curvilinear with Perpendicular tracery in the clerestory windows; the three westernmost bays are Transitional or early Lancet below, Curvilinear above, but with Perpendicular tracery in the windows. The present vault of the choir is chiefly of lath and plaster, by Wyatt.
The Cathedral Church of St. Mary, Lincoln.
“Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.”