Bell's Cathedrals: St. David's

by Philip A. Robson

pleasing prospects in the cathedral. This view gains by comparison with the nave because of the latter’s over-intricacy, which complication is avoided in the choir by the absence of a triforium. There are four Transitional bays of very good proportions, if we except perhaps a tendency to heaviness in the alternately round and octagonal piers. Here we have—what the nave-bay design so much wants—strong vertical lines in the clustered shafts. The Transitional vaulting-shafts stop a little above the string over the arcade, and continuing them are slender Decorated ones with elaborate capitals. The clerestory lights (also Transitional) are beautifully detailed with a bold kind of chevron.

The east end is one of the finest pieces of Norman blending with Early English in the cathedral, or, for the matter of that, in the kingdom. It is composed of three lancets below and four above, Sir G. G. Scott having restored it to the state in which it was after the rebuilding of 1220, consequent upon the fall of the tower, except that Bishop Vaughan’s Chapel has made it desirable that the three lower lights should not be open as they originally were. They are now filled with mosaics.

In the fifteenth century, when the Perpendicular window was inserted, the stonework of the previous wall and upper tier of lights was used for heightening the side walls. Finding these walls to be a mine of the débris of the earlier windows, and the Perpendicular window in a bad state of decay, Scott determined to replace the old work.

After the fall of the tower the rebuilders were astonishingly conservative in their avoidance of novelty. It cannot have been from any want of ability, and we incline to the belief that it was the result of a genuine desire to make the new work harmonise with that in the nave and, by re-using a certain amount of old material, to relieve a possibly not overflowing exchequer of a larger disbursement. In the fifteenth century the steep-pitched roof of cradle-pattern, marks of which remain on the tower, was removed, the gable lowered, and the walls at each side raised about six feet. A roof of very flat pitch (as now) and the Perpendicular east window were added.

Finally, when Bishop Vaughan added his chapel behind the east end the lower lancets were walled up. During the Civil War the lead was stripped from the aisle roofs and the main arcades of the presbytery were filled up by walling, and the huge props to the roof were inserted which appear in Freeman’s view. The eastern windows are deeply recessed, and the banded shafts have caps of stiff-leaved foliage, and angels form the termination to the hood-moulding. Just below the cills is an early example of an embattled band, almost Greek in its severity, and beneath this again are numbers of intersecting semicircular arches with a ball ornament.

After four centuries of immurement the upper range of lights are restored to their former arcaded glory, behind the graceful shafts of which runs a passage. The restored portions are readily recognisable by their being made of oolite, whilst the original stones are all of purple Caerfai. These windows are now filled with stained glass by Hardman, the gift of the Rev. J. Lucy. The subjects are the Last Supper, Gethsemane, the Transfiguration, and the Nativity. The large lower lancets are filled with mosaics by Salviati, which are good of their kind. They form a fixed reredos, and were also part of a memorial by the Reverend John Lucy, Rector of Hampton Lucy, Warwickshire, to his ancestor, William Lucy, Bishop of St. David’s, 1660-1677. The designer of the mosaics as well as the glass above was Powell, of Hardman’s glass works in Birmingham.

“The subjects are—in the central window, the Crucifixion, with the attendant figures of the Virgin and St. John; the Magdalene kneels at the foot of the cross. In the side windows are full-lengths of ‘Ecclesia’ and ‘Synagoga,’ the Christian Church and the Jewish. In a predella below the central mosaic is a representation of the brazen serpent, with figures of Moses and Aaron. Below the others are—St. David distributing alms to the poor, and St. David addressing the Synod of Llandewi Brefi. Each of the larger subjects has a rich architectural canopy, and a broad border of very beautiful design surrounds the whole....

“Immediately under the Crucifixion are the words, ‘Ecce Agnus Dei, ecce qui tollit peccata mundi’; and below again, within an arcade of three arches are the brazen serpent, Moses, and Aaron—one bearing his rod, the other his ‘rod that budded.’ Under the figure of Ecclesia is St. David, in a grey monastic robe, bestowing alms. Under Synagoga, he is addressing the Bishops at Brefi.... He stands in the centre, while the Bishops are seated round, with a white robed Abbot in the foreground.”[25]

The golden ground which backs the mosaics sets off advantageously the delicate garb and pale flesh-tinting of the principal figures. The borders and other ornaments are rich and varied in colour; and considering that the east end of the presbytery is somewhat dimly lit, it was unquestionably desirable that the designs of the mosaics should be firm in drawing. The heads are perhaps the best part, which is no small achievement, being as a rule the worst executed. The effect of the mosaics, with their shimmer of gold, and solemn figures lighting up the dark wall of the sanctuary, is by no means bad, and, moreover, they harmonise with the deep hues of the surrounding stonework. There is a pleasing fitness, too, in the “Old coat” of the Lucys being placed in the pavement of the presbytery, and stained glass above—a memorial no less of the former Bishop than of the giver of these handsome decorations.

Under the central recess on a brass is: