V. A little later, the eastern apse of the north transept was replaced by a double chapel (c. 1260). The shafts have the “keel-moulding,” both here and in the chapter-house.
NAVE, LOOKING EAST.
VI. Next was built the cloister—i.e., the southern part of the Vestibule leading to the chapter-house. Notice the lovely doorway in the north choir-aisle. In this and the arcade is early naturalistic foliage, which fixes the date as c. 1280. Before the upper story was built, and when the eastern arcade was open, it must have been singularly beautiful. From the little courtyard between the cloister and the eastern transept the views are most picturesque.
VII. Then was built the vestibule and the chapter-house. If in window tracery and leafage it be compared with the chapter-house of York, it will be plain that the Southwell example is the earlier. Southwell chapter-house may be 1290, York 1300. York chapter-house is then but a copy of that of Southwell—and an inferior copy; both dispense with a central pier; but Southwell has a magnificent vault of stone, whereas York is vaulted in wood. The chapter-house of Southwell, not that of York, is “among chapter-houses, as the rose among flowers.” “What Cologne cathedral is to Germany, Amiens to France,” says Mr. Street, “is Southwell chapter-house to England.” Here English stone-carvers produced their best work; nowhere will you find such capitals or crockets or spandrels, nor such portraits—all, no doubt, here and in the cloister, representing people living at Southwell 1280-1300. Photographs of this wonderful detail have been inserted in the Introduction, pages v-xiii.
CHOIR SCREEN.
VIII. But the wonders of Southwell do not end yet. In the Curvilinear period (1315-1360) was erected quite the loveliest choir screen in England; next comes that of Lincoln, evidently by the same hand. Eastern and western sides are entirely different in design: on the western side the artist parts reluctantly with the beautiful geometrical design of the thirteenth century; on the eastern side he accepts unreservedly the reign of the ogee arch. Magnificent sedilia and stone stalls of similar character were erected, which only survive in part. Very beautiful, too, is the cusping of the reticulated windows inserted in the north transept chapel.
The upper parts of the chapter-house and the north transept chapel also were remodelled in the Curvilinear period.
For two hundred years or more, the highest and best of mediæval art found cultivated and wealthy patrons in the canons of Southwell. Norman, Lancet, Geometrical, Curvilinear work are all seen here at their best. Few of our cathedrals, from the point of view either of architectural design or sculptured detail, can be mentioned in the same breath with Southwell. Nowhere will the architectural student find such a treasure of the best work of the best periods as in the sister churches of the canons of Beverley and Southwell. It is one of the greatest delights of Southwell that this lovely minster is little known and almost unvisited: one feels as if one were “the first that ever burst into this silent sea.”