Begun in 1220, the whole cathedral, except west front, tower and spire, was complete in 1266, having cost, it is said, what is equivalent to half a million of our money. It has, therefore, the distinction among our cathedrals of having a design which is practically uniform. It is said, indeed, and with perfect truth, that the homogeneity and uniformity of the design of Salisbury makes it less interesting than the usual composite cathedral of England, with its design changing, as in Selby nave, almost in every bay. When we have seen one bay of Salisbury nave, we have seen the other nine, and we know that we shall find practically the same design in the choir. Yet we can afford very well, in England, to have one great design, the product not of a dozen minds, but of one mind; a work completed in less than half a century, and not spread out, like Canterbury, over four centuries, or like Hereford, over seven.
NAVE.
Again, building on a virgin site, Elias de Dereham did what all great builders have always wished to do—he made his building symmetrical. It is the fashion to contrast the symmetry of Greek with the picturesqueness of Gothic architecture. The comparison may be carried too far. The Erechtheium is as unsymmetrical and picturesque as any Gothic building. The great cathedrals of northern France, and Salisbury and Exeter, are quite classical in their symmetry. But they are not pedantic in their symmetry. Because nave balances choir, the north transept the south transept, and the north-east transept the south-east transept, the builder was not so foolish as to construct on the south a big porch to balance that on the north side of the nave. Instead of that, he built to the south an octagonal chapter-house, and this he placed unsymmetrically—i.e., picturesquely—because, so placed, it was more to the convenience of those who would have to use it. In other words, he did not purposefully aim at the picturesque and the irregular. Gothic cathedrals are picturesque, either of accident, as at Canterbury, owing to the casual collocation of work of different design in the course of several centuries, or because the different parts of the cathedral, being intended for different functions, have been designed different in plan, in dimensions, and in details. The latter is the case with Salisbury.
Two chief types of cathedral plan were at the architect’s disposal: what we may call the York type, and the Wells type. In the latter, the cathedral continues at its fullest height from the western doors to the far east of the sanctuary, then the retro-choir or ante-chapel (sometimes divided into Saint’s chapel and processional path or ambulatory) is roofed at a far lower height, and east of them is a Lady chapel, similarly on a low level. And, of course, as the upper wall of the east end of the sanctuary requires to be supported, arches have to be built beneath it opening from the sanctuary into the retro-choir. The plan is a beautiful one—it is our English equivalent for the French ‘chevet.’ Externally, the different portions of the eastern limb tell distinctly the purposes for which they are built: standing to the east of Winchester, or Wells, or Hereford, you say at once, “This building is the Lady chapel; there is the processional path and probably the shrine of the local saint, there is the east end of the sanctuary, and the light from that east window at the early morning services streams down on the high altar below.” Internally, too, the effect is delightful; the upper story of the cathedral is of course really greatly curtailed in length, but the cathedral is not shortened to the eye: the mysterious vistas through the east arches of the cathedral more than restore the height lost above; the glimpses of Lady chapel behind ambulatory, and ambulatory behind Saints’ chapel, as seen from far west in the nave, make the termination of the Lady chapel, invisible from many points of view, seem infinitely distant. Of these mysterious distances, shadowy recesses and changing vistas, there is nothing in Lincoln and York; the whole eastern limb is seen at a single glance, and, unfortunately, is foreshortened by the eye. Wells and Salisbury internally look longer than they are, Lincoln and York much shorter. In mediæval days, however, the ritualistic divisions of the church were marked off by a series of screens, each adding apparent length to the interior. So many of these screens, however, have been swept away by Wyatt, Scott and the like, or replaced by paltry open-work, as at Lichfield and Durham, that many of the cathedrals of this type are now mere open barns; all sense of mystery, all sense of magnitude gone. Externally, York and Lincoln and Beverley have the best of it. The sweep of a sky-line, five hundred feet in length, at a height so vast, is sublimely impressive. The cost of an exterior kept at an unbroken height for such a distance is very great, but it is worth the cost.
TRANSEPT
Cathedrals of the latter type, such as Ely, York, and Southwell, are quite presentable with a central tower of moderate height, provided that it is reinforced by more important towers to the west. An exterior of the former type, that of Wells and Salisbury, demands a very important central tower. Accordingly, every cathedral of this type has a big central tower—viz., St. Alban’s, Hereford, Wells; or a spire as well as a tower—viz., Chichester. (Winchester alone is an exception, an exception which proves how very much a central tower is needed in such elevations.) In such exteriors, looked at from the east, hills rise beyond hills, alps beyond alps, and the eye instinctively looks up to see the highest ranges aspire into the pyramidal outline of a Matterhorn. And this is what is given us at Salisbury.
CHOIR.