George Edmund Street: Unpublished Notes and Reprinted Papers

by George Edmund Street

In the course of the autumn of last year, I spent a short holiday, not unprofitably, I hope, in the examination of some of the old towns in the north of Germany; and, as the interest of the architectural remains in this district is very great, and our acquaintance with them too slight, I cannot help thinking that a mere transcript of my diary during the time that I was examining them may be of some use and interest. I have already printed notices, drawn up from the same journal, of the churches of Lübeck, and the cathedral at Marburg; and I shall now employ myself in giving shorter descriptions of the other chief features of this journey.

Crossing by Calais, and taking hurried glances only at S. Omer, with its noble cathedral, and the fine relic of the abbey of S. Bertin, remarkable among great French churches for its single western tower, I went on to Lille,—a town whose interest to architects just now is rather in the future than in the past, but whose church of S. Maurice is a striking example of the difference in the conception of a town church on the Continent and in this country in the Middle Ages. It has two aisles on each side of the nave and choir, and is groined throughout. Here we should look on such a church almost in the light of a cathedral; there, on the contrary, it is a not very remarkable parish church. Some old brick work at the back of the Hotel de Ville is the only other old feature which I remember in Lille; but its streets and market-place are busy and picturesque.

From Lille, passing by Courtrai, I reached Ypres in time to spend the afternoon in sketching and studying what is perhaps the noblest example of the domestic work of Germany. Les Halles, as this great pile of building is called, seems to have been a great covered mart, rather than a mere town hall; and when I was there, a fair was being held within its walls, and, filled with picturesque groups of people, and stalls for the sale of every conceivable kind of merchandise, the grandeur of its size and design was well seen. The main portion of the building is of uniform early middle-pointed date, and forms an immense and rather irregular parallelogram, enclosing some long and narrow courts. The principal front towards the market place is, by a rough measurement which I made, about 375 feet in length; very uniform in its design, but broken in the centre by a fine lofty engaged tower, surmounted with a spire, finishing in a sort of louvre, of modern character. The whole effect of the building is inconceivably grand, leaving behind it in point of general effect even (I am bold in saying it) the Ducal Palace at Venice. In elevation the main building is divided into three stages. The ground stage consists of a succession of openings with square heads, trefoiled; the next of a long series of two-light windows with quatrefoils in the head, the openings in which are square, the tracery not being pierced; and the third stage has again an immense succession of traceried openings alternately glazed and blank. The whole is surmounted by a lofty traceried parapet corbelled out, and the steep and original timber roof is surmounted with a ridge-crest of stone, of more delicate character than I have ever seen elsewhere. The front is finished at the angles with immense octangular pinnacles, corbelling out at their base from the wall, and the tower, which rises two stages above the ridge of the roof, has also at its angles similar pinnacles. The general motif of the entire front is continued happily in the steeple, the faces of which are occupied with rows of lofty windows of two lights. From the belfry, and from within another corbelled parapet, springs the spire, which, at first square, becomes, below the tourelle on its summit, an octagon.

Immediately behind Les Halles, stands the cathedral. This has a fine western tower, built circa A.D. 1380, and remarkable for the triple buttresses at its angles. The west door is double, and set within an enclosing arch with the west window, in a common German fashion. The interior is lofty and spacious, with cylindrical shafts, whose capitals have simple foliage of the thirteenth century. The triforium is good, and some of the clerestory (e.g. that in the south transept) is also early and good; but the whole church is not by any means of the first order. The south transept has recently been very creditably restored, the new carving being executed with much spirit. The east end is remarkable externally for its tall buttresses, without weatherings, and for the deep arches under which the windows are set, and which give the building too much of a skeleton effect to be pleasing. A rather graceful turret (of Renaissance character) surmounts the crossing.

The cathedral and Les Halles, though close together, are not absolutely parallel, but the combination of the two buildings, with their towers and turrets, and two other towers, is very good, and gives an imposing effect to the general views of the old city.

It is to be observed, that though in Les Halles the pointed arch and the very best window-tracery are everywhere used, there is no possibility of mistaking it for a church, or even for a religious building.

There are many old houses in the town, generally of the sixteenth century, with stepped gables, and four-centred window-heads with carved tympana; but their effect generally is not satisfactory.

Between Ypres and Courtrai (whither I next journeyed) are some large churches, of which that at Comines would, I think, repay examination. Courtrai has not much to call for remark; though its market place is quaint, picturesque, and irregularly grouped, with a clock-tower, turreted at the angles and with a spire-like capping, rising suddenly out from among its houses, out of whose windows sound forth constantly those cheery chimes which give so much colour to the recollection of all the towns in this chime-loving part of the world. At the back of the market place a fine middle-pointed church tower rises, capped with a most picturesque slated tourelle. The church to which it is attached is the largest in Courtrai, but not remarkable. It has an apsidal projecting chapel in the second bay from the west, noticeable in that the axis of the apse is north and south. The other churches are of little value, and much mutilated. Notre Dame has a western tower, and a chapel added on the south side of the choir which has pinnacles, and a bell-turret on the gable, of very good character.

Perhaps the most interesting building in the town is the town hall. It is of late date, and the tracery of the windows, and the figures which once adorned the front between the windows, are all destroyed. The doors are original, and an old staircase with panelled sides, and partly old metal balustrade, leads to the hall on the first floor. This has a fine simple open roof of timber, with double collar-beams and arched braces: this, I fear, is no longer visible, as, when I was there, workmen were just about to begin the erection of a ceiling under it, to make the room fit for the reception of the King of the Belgians. In two side rooms there are very remarkable fireplaces, one of which is well known by Haghe’s drawing. The finer of the two is adorned with a profusion of sculptures representing the Vices and Virtues and very striking in their treatment.

From Courtrai, a short journey by railway brought me to Tournai—a town not, I think, so well known as it ought to be for its magnificent cathedral—doubtless the finest, by very far, in Belgium. The nave and transepts are Romanesque. In the former, there is that quadruple division in height so frequent in the thirteenth century churches in the neighbouring part of France. The transepts are very noble, and ended with grand apses, and both they and the choir are very much more lofty than the nave. They owe much of their grandeur to the number of detached shafts of great size, and to the fact that the aisle, triforium, and clerestory, are all carried round the apses. The choir is all of the thirteenth century, and very lofty and light in its proportions. The windows are being carefully restored; but some bad stained glass has been recently put up. In the sacristy there is a little old plate, of which I may mention a fine monstrance, and two shrines; one of which, of the thirteenth century, is one of the most exquisite I have ever seen, being adorned with a great deal of enamelling and silversmith’s work, of most delicate character. There is also here a fine cope-chest; but I found only one old vestment,—the orphrey of a chasuble, with figures of saints; date about A.D. 1450; the rest were modern, and generally very tawdry. But they possess here, in addition to these vestments, an altar frontal, of great interest; it is embroidered on a white silk ground, with a tree of Jesse: the figures are well executed in high relief, and the effect of the whole, with the stiff conventional arms of the tree encircling the figures, is very striking. The embroidery is executed in the same way as our old English work; but I never saw any figures worked with so much spirit or so much character in their faces. The old fringe of red silk over gold thread remains.