Highways and Byways in Cambridge and Ely

by John William Edward Conybeare

From the Galilee we step into the nave. To attempt any description of the view before us would be futile; when we say that we are "uplifted" by it we have expressed in one word all that we dare to formulate. By moonlight, when the minster is empty; or on some day of Choral Festival, when arch and pillar echo back the music, this wondrous fabric, hallowed and mellowed by time, says to us, with a voice almost audible, "Sursum corda!" "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

The nave in which we are standing is wholly Norman in its architecture; its pillars, alternately clustered and cylindrical, support round arches; these again support the round-headed double arches of the triforium, and these yet again the triple lights of the clerestory windows, three tiers in all. The arches are somewhat stilted, starting with a straight line, and are rather higher than semi-circular. All this severe architecture of Norman type leads on, as it were, to the more delicate tracery and moulding of the Early English lancet lights of the east window.

It seems almost paradoxical to say that the western arches as we see them are of more recent date than the tower which they support; yet this statement is true, for they were constructed in the fifteenth century to strengthen the steeple built more than two hundred years before. The more ancient masonry is for the most part completely hidden by the newer, but the tops of the original archways remain in full view to show how much they have been contracted by this encasing stonework. During the previous century six bells had been hung in the steeple; moreover, the eight-sided turret had been built on the top of it, and all this additional weight must inevitably have led to the fall of the whole, but for the strengthening and underpinning of the piers.

South Aisle of the Nave, Ely.

Over the westernmost archway is a modern window inserted by Bishop Yorke toward the close of the eighteenth century, noteworthy only for its Flemish glass. In the lower southern light we see St. John the Evangelist playing with a partridge, illustrative of the legend which relates how his disciples found him, as an aged man, thus engaged, and how, in answer to their expression of surprise at this unwonted relaxation, he remarked to them "A bow cannot be kept always strung." Strange to say, this story, which would seem specially fitted to call forth the painter's gifts, is almost unknown to art.

Through the southern of these archways we step into the western transept, the Baptistery of the cathedral, where stands a font of modern date. Here to the east is the apsidal chapel known as St. Catharine's. All tracery and ornament around us is still strictly Norman in character, and zigzag moulding prevails; but we can see here how the round arched stone-work, as it intersects, forms graceful lancets, thus suggesting the pointed or two centred arch; and when once the architect's eye had caught its beauty, he refused to let his compass trace out the simpler one-centred arch of the Norman period, and Early English architecture came in with a rush.

St. Catharine's Chapel is used daily by the students of the Ely Theological College, and a beautiful altar of alabaster and jasper, placed here in 1896, harmonises, in its character of dignity and permanence, with the Norman stonework around. The apse in which it stands is a modern restoration, having been for many years a ruin; indeed the whole of this western transept was for long cut off from the Tower by a wall of stud and plaster, and served as a workshop and lumber-room, where materials for use in the repairs of the Cathedral could be stored, till Dean Peacock set himself in 1842 to remedy this condition of things. It is now one of the most romantic corners of the Minster.

We return to the Tower, and pause for a moment to notice "the Maze"[224] inlaid in marble in the pavement. From this quaint design at our feet we turn to look at the roof of the nave over our heads, painted with scenes from the Old and New Testaments. The western end is the work of Mr. Le Strange, who died in 1864, before his work of love was completed. Happily it was continued and finished by Mr. Gambier Parry, as devoted a lover of the Church and of art, a personal friend of Harvey Goodwin, who was Dean at the time, and at whose request the artist undertook the arduous task of roof-painting. A slight change in the character of the designs shows where one painter ended his work and the other took it up.