The chapel consists of two parts or stories, the lower of which has a door into the north aisle as well as into the choir. The lowest portion or base on either side consists of figures of angels, much mutilated, bearing shields.
The chantry has two roofs, both with fine vaulting, formerly richly painted, but the lower roof only covers the western half of the chapel. The pendent bosses have been destroyed. At the top the canopy work is so delicately sculptured that it resembles lace.
The lower ceiling, extending over half the chapel, consists of large and small circles. Of these, the larger ones are ribbed with sixteen ribs, while the smaller ones are quatrefoils, each member being composed of a trefoil with an elegantly carved cusp. Between these smaller circles are still smaller ones composed of quatrefoils. This ceiling is supported by two slender shafts. Along the exposed front of the ceiling are four double cinquefoil arches, between which were three busts. Of these, one only, viz., an angel with a scroll, remains.
In the upper storey of the chapel the ceiling is made up of hexagons and octagons, the intervening space being filled up with circles, trefoils of irregular shapes, though symmetrically disposed, and quatrefoils. The points of the pendant have been ruthlessly destroyed.
Photo. A.H. Hughes.
THE WARWICK CHAPEL.[ToList]
Of this chantry Mr. Knight wrote: "There can be but one opinion on the praise which belongs to the exquisiteness of finishing by which the several parts of it are distinguished; the entablature, wedged between two of the old pillars of the choir, and appearing to rest upon light columnar buttresses of singular beauty, give us an assemblage of filigree and fretwork, which may vie with the finest specimens of similar workmanship in the kingdom: the elegant palm-leaved parapet, which occurs in the division between the storeys,—the numerous escutcheons blazoned in their proper colours,—the niches, and pedestals, under their respective canopies, once ornamented with figures which fanaticism has dislodged,—the slender shafts supporting a higher apartment, probably the rood-loft, in the inside of the fabric, from whence half-figures of angels are seen to issue,—the pendants dropping, like congelations in a grotto, from a roof adorned with the most delicate tracery spread over it like a web,—these and a countless multitude of minuter beauties, almost distract attention, and overwhelm the judgment with their different claims to notice."
Some have thought the upper portion was intended to serve as a private pew for the Lady Isabelle. To this the difficulty of access may well be urged as a valid objection. Others have thought that the upper part was a rood-loft. Others again have thought that the half-roof was a platform upon which a kneeling figure (in imitation of that in the Trinity Chapel) was placed.[25] By her will the Lady Isabelle gave instructions that her statue was to be placed on the right hand of her father in the choir, and that it was to represent her entirely naked (i.e. without any state robes), with her hair cast backwards; with St. Mary Magdalen (one of the saints to whom the chapel was dedicated) laying her hands across: with St. John the Evangelist on her right side and St. Anthony on her left. At her feet there was to be an escutcheon, bearing her arms impaled with those of her late husband—who had died just three months before her—supported by two griffins; and at the side there were to be statues of poor men and women in humble apparel with their beads in their hands. From the Abbey Register this part of the lady's last will and testament seems to have been carried out; but nothing remains of these added figures or of the tomb. The chapel is less perfect on the south, or choir side, than on that which faces the north aisle.