English Cathedrals Illustrated / Second and Revised Edition

by Francis Bond

IV. In 1179 the cathedral was greatly damaged by fire. Either because of this, or because the eastern half of the cathedral had been planned so inconveniently, or because the plan was not the fashionable one of Norman times, the monks set to work to rebuild the whole cathedral. As usual, they arranged their building operations so as to avoid interfering with the services in the choir as long as possible. First, they rebuilt the north aisle of the choir, but not so high as it is at present. The aisle remained narrow, because Gundulph’s tower was in the way. But the south aisle of the choir they doubled in width. Next, they set to work at the east end, planning it, as at Hereford, as an eastern transept with an eastern aisle, and projecting eastward an oblong sanctuary (cf. Southwell). The new transept was lofty and broad; and it is quite possible that it was built over the top of Gundulph’s east end without disturbing daily services within it. Then, when all was finished, Gundulph’s east end was pulled down. Unlike the Worcester monks they preserved the level of the eleventh-century choir, and consequently had to continue Gundulph’s crypt eastward. In the new presbytery is seen the same curious mixture of quadripartite and sexpartite vaulting as in St. Hugh’s eastern transept at Lincoln. All this work was finished in 1227.

Next they pulled down Gundulph’s narrow north transept and rebuilt it as broad as the central aisle of the nave. The new transept has a sexpartite vault with a longitudinal ridge rib, as in the great transept of Lincoln (c. 1245).

Then came the rebuilding of the south transept (c. 1280). They resolved also to have a central tower and to rebuild the nave. Of the nave they rebuilt the two easternmost bays, and then completed the piers and arches of the crossing; but not yet the tower.

Up to this point the works had gone on continuously for a century. What enabled the monks to undertake such a great work as the rebuilding of the whole cathedral, and why, after doing so much, they suddenly stopped, has now to be explained. The secret of the flush of money at Rochester was that in 1201 the monks acquired a new saint, St. William. “He was by birth a Scot, of Perth; by trade, a baker; in charity so abundant that he gave to the poor the tenth loaf of his workmanship; in zeal so fervent that in vow he promised, and in deed attempted, to visit the places where Christ was conversant on earth; in which journey, he made Rochester his way, where, after that he had rested two or three days, he departed toward Canterbury. But ere he had gone far from the city, his servant—a foundling who had been brought up by him out of charity—led him of purpose out of the highway, and spoiled him both of his money and his life. The servant escaped, but his master (because he died in so holy a purpose of mind) was by the monks conveyed to St. Andrew’s and laid in the choir. And soon he wrought miracles plentifully.” It was, then, from offerings at the shrine of St. Thomas of Perth, left by countless pilgrims on their way to the shrine of a yet greater Thomas at Canterbury, that the expenses of the new choir were paid. And it was simply because in the course of eighty years the repute of the murdered baker had paled and waned before the ever-growing fame of the murdered archbishop, that the monks had to renounce, once for all, their ambitious project of rebuilding the whole of the nave. It seems, however, that they were for a considerable time unwilling to give up hope; for one bay of the Norman triforium was pulled down, leaving a gap, which was not filled up till the fourteenth century; when, oddly enough, it was rebuilt in the same Norman style as before, but in greensand—a rare mediæval example of “architectural forgery” (cf. Durham Galilee).

CHOIR.

V. But though the rebuilding of the nave was definitely abandoned, a good deal of work was done in the Curvilinear period (1315-1360). The central tower was at length erected; it was removed in 1749. A solid stone screen was built between the piers, as at Ripon; the south aisle of the choir was brought into its present form by the absorption of Gundulph’s southern tower; a grand doorway to the chapter-house was built, and monuments were erected to Bishop Hamo de Hythe (d. 1352), and Bishop John de Sheppey (d. 1360).

The monks now also provided a Lady chapel. This they got in a very inexpensive way—a proof that their resources had greatly fallen off—by appropriating for the purpose the southern transept, the two eastern bays of which they threw into one to form a recess for the altar of the Virgin.

VI. After this little was done at Rochester, except to build out a chapel of three bays westward from the south transept, giving a sort of nave to the Lady chapel.