Canterbury

by Gordon Home

THE DOORWAY INTO THE TRANSEPT OF MARTYRDOM FROM THE CLOISTERS.
It was through this doorway that Becket was followed by his murderers on that fatal afternoon in 1170 when the winter twilight was deepening.

The smooth turf along the south side of the Cathedral was used by the monks as a lay cemetery, and the fairly extensive space to the south-east shaded by old elms was their own burial-ground. All the monastic buildings were, contrary to the usual custom, on the north, for having only a narrow space between the south side of their church and the wall which Lanfranc built to secure the whole monastery, they naturally built on their extensive piece of ground running right up to the city wall to the north. Rounding the east end of the Cathedral, therefore, one finds under its ample shadow the remains of many of the domestic offices of the great priory. The great hall, with its kitchen and offices, is now part of the house of one of the prebendaries, and is not accessible to the public, but to the west are the interesting ruins of the infirmary. This was a long building with aisles, having a chapel opening out of it to the east, so that the sick brethren while lying in their beds could listen to the services. The south arcade of this chapel, consisting of four Norman arches with an ivy-grown clerestory, is still standing, and there are also some arches of the south side of the hall still showing the orange-pink colour produced on the stone by the disastrous fire in 1174, when Conrad's choir was reduced to a ruin. Adjoining the western end of the infirmary hall, and now a part of the Cathedral, is the beautiful Transitional-Norman treasury built on to St. Andrew's Chapel. Going to the right through a passage called the Dark Entry, one has the site of the prior's lodging on the right and on the left the infirmary cloister, and north of it the smaller dormitories of the monks. This passage-way leads through the vaulted Prior's Gate to the Green Court, a wide grassy space shaded by great limes and other trees. Framed between the spreading branches appears one of the most perfect groupings of the Angel Steeple with the piled-up roofs of the library, chapter house, and north-west transept as steps leading up to the vast tower, whose presence has an uplifting effect on the mind, scarcely equalled by the solemn immensity of the nave when one first enters—but the interior must wait for a little, while the remaining portions of the precincts are seen.

Adjoining the Prior's Gate to the east is the building now used as the Deanery. It was built by Prior Goldstone in late Perpendicular times as a guest-house for the reception of strangers, but has been much altered since that time. At the north-west corner of the court is a very fine Norman gateway, now surrounded by the modern buildings of the King's School, and a little to the right is a Norman staircase, which by the goodness of Providence was allowed to remain when other destruction was in progress. This beautiful and unique example of a staircase of this early period is the most remarkable feature of the monastic remains. Beyond the Green Court Gate stood the almonry and a granary, and south of these buildings was the Archbishop's Palace, so ruined in Puritan times that the remains of a gateway in Palace Street is practically all that can now be seen. The present palace is quite modern. Coming back to the Cathedral, the remarkably picturesque little circular Lavatory Tower standing on late Norman open arches is noticeable in its shadowy seclusion among the lofty walls of the choir chapels. This is generally known as the Baptistery, but the name only began to be used when the font Bishop Warner presented to the Cathedral was placed there. In the little garden in front of the Lavatory Tower are two Roman columns brought from Reculver more than a century ago when the church there became a ruin. West of this tower is the library, standing on part of the site of the great dormitory, and opening on to the cloisters is the chapter house, commenced in 1304 by Prior Estria and finished in 1378 by Prior Chillenden. The windows at the east and west ends are the largest in the Cathedral.

The great cloister, like the chapter house, largely owes its present appearance to Prior Chillenden, and is of exceedingly beautiful Perpendicular work with a splendid roof of lierne vaulting. Part of the south walk, with the doorway into the north transept—the successor to the Norman one through which Becket passed to his death—is shown in Mr. Biscombe Gardner's drawing facing [page 43]. If one enters the Cathedral from this point, especially if it should be in the twilight of a gloomy day, the atmosphere of the murder seems to be all about one, notwithstanding the rebuilding at a later period of the actual scene, but the historic entrance is by the south porch facing the great gate of the priory, and as it is still the usual place of entry this short account of the interior will begin at that point.

THE GREYFRIARS' HOUSE IN CANTERBURY.
This picturesque house of the Franciscans, who came to the town in 1220, stands on a branch of the Stour near Stour Street.

The porch belongs to the great period of rebuilding under Prior Chillenden, and, with its double row of canopied niches containing statues, is a beautiful feature, even with the central space which contained a representation of the martyrdom of Becket still vacant since the days of Henry VIII. There is in the first view of a vast Cathedral nave something almost overpowering in its sense of ordered beauty. It may be that average lives are so planless, so haphazard and without order that an achievement of such magnitude representing years of labour and concentrated thought in steadily following out a preconceived plan cannot fail to be a tremendous contrast to the smallness and pettiness of the majority—a contrast so great that it is mentally and spiritually a glimpse of the world of new possibilities attainable when once the feverish clinging to the ideals of the totem post is abandoned. This vast nave, reminiscent in many ways of Winchester, but far more satisfying, is generally bathed in a cool, greenish light, and is, in reality, a magnificent vestibule to the crowded interest beyond the transept. The effect of emptiness existing to-day is vastly different to what the pilgrims used to gaze upon while waiting their turn to be sprinkled with holy water, for before the Reformation and the complete sweeping away of the enrichments of Roman Catholic times the roof and walls were brilliant with paintings, the windows glowed with the warm colour of medieval glass, sumptuous hangings were suspended in many places and the altars twinkling with lighted candles added much gilding and colour to the aisles. All this barbarous crowding of colour and ornament, all this splendour of a ritual that appealed to an age capable of stilling the voice of conscience with an absolution obtainable for a few pence has passed away, but the vast building remains to tell of the reality of endeavour of one side of monastic life.