THE CHAPTER HOUSE.
From a Photograph by Carl Norman and Co.[ToList]
Close to the south transept, in the choir aisle, is the altar tomb (54) of Bishop Mitford, 1407, which Britton rightly calls a noble monument. In the spandrils of the flat arch of its canopy are armorial shields. Lilies and birds, holding in their beaks scrolls, inscribed, "Honor Deo et gloria," are on its cornice. The shields on the north bear the bishop's arms and those of his see; on the south are quartered the arms of England and France, and the ensign of Edward the Confessor—the cross patonée surrounded by five martlets.
Here also is a modern altar tomb (55), from a design by Mr. G.E. Street, to the memory of John Henry Jacob, and a fine Jacobean monument with bust and Latin inscription to Lord Chief Justice Hyde.
Among many other post-reformation monuments are those to: Bishop Fisher (56) on the east wall; a canopied altar tomb (57) in the Gothic style to the memory of Edward and Rachel Poore (died 1780 and 1781), the collateral descendants of the famous bishop, and a marble slab set in a Gothic frame to Canon Hume (died 1834).
On the south wall of the nave (58) there is an effigy of Mrs. Eleanor Sadler, who died July 30th, 1622, and was interred "according to her owne desire under this her pew, wherein with great devotion she had served God dailie almost L years." Amid other monuments on this wall, dating from late in the seventeenth century to the present day, is a small tablet (60) to one of the most famous Salisbury men in modern times, the Right Hon. Henry Fawcett, M.P., late Postmaster-General, who died in 1884.
The Chapter House, which is entered from the eastern walk of the cloisters, dates probably from the time of Edward the First; later it may be, but certainly not earlier than the commencement of his reign, as, during certain excavations for underpinning the walls in 1854, several pennies of that king were found below its foundations. The architecture is somewhat later in style than that of the cloisters, and if it be not, as its admirers claim, the most beautiful in England, it has few rivals. Like Westminster, Wells, and other English examples, except York and Southwell, it has a central pillar, from which the groining of the roof springs gracefully in harmonious lines. A raised bench of stone runs round the interior. At its back, forty-nine niches of a canopied arcade borne on slight Purbeck marble shafts mark out as many seats. They are apportioned as follows: those at each side of the entrance to the Chancellor and Treasurer respectively, the rest to the Bishop, Dean, Arch-deacons, and other members of the chapter.
THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHAPTER HOUSE.[ToList]