Grammar School, (taken down in 1836,) and a north walk never existed. (Hereford Cathedral, it should be remembered, had no monastic establishment attached to it; and this cloister, [Plate XII.] unlike that at Gloucester, was little more than an ornamental walk, connected with the Bishop’s Palace). The cloister is of Perpendicular date, with window-openings which deserve notice. The south walk is more richly groined than the east. At the south-east corner is a square turreted tower, called the “Ladies’,” or “Ladye Arbour,” the original purpose of which is not clear; nor has it been possible to trace the origin of the name, which apparently has some reference to the Virgin.
Some good old iron-work on a door between the cloister and the chapter-yard should be noticed. In the cloister are placed monuments for—Dr. Matthews, (with sculptured figures); Bishop Huntingford, (died 1832); and Bishop Grey, (died 1837).
Between the cloister and the Bishop’s Palace, a remarkable chapel, which seems to have been early Norman, existed until it was pulled down by Bishop Egerton, (1724-1746). It had an upper and a lower story, in which were altars dedicated respectively to St. Mary Magdalene and to St. Catherine. One wall alone remains, and deserves notice.
From the east walk of the cloister a door opened to the vestibule of the chapter-house. This was ruined by the Parliamentarian troops; and much of its stone-work was used by Bishop Bisse, (died 1721,) and by his successors until recently, for the repairs of the episcopal palace. The foundations and fragments which remain shew that it was rich Decorated, in shape a decagon, with a projecting buttress at each angle.
At the south-west angle of the lesser transept is an entrance to the Vicars’ Cloister; (see § XXVII.)
XXV. The exterior of the great north transept should be especially noticed. The remarkable windows shew to great advantage from the outside, in connection with the massive buttresses, of which those at the angles are turreted, with spiral cappings. The clerestory windows are, as has already (§ XI.) been mentioned, triangular on the exterior, and resemble those in the outer wall of the triforium in the nave of Westminster. The upper window in the north wall opens from the Archive Room, (§ XXIII.) The external sills of all these windows resemble those of the interior, (§ XI.) They were walled up, but have been restored by Mr. Scott from original portions found embedded in the walls, partly in their places, and partly detached.
The date of the central tower, which rises above this transept, has not been recorded, but it may safely be placed between 1300 and 1310. It was probably undertaken immediately after the completion of the north transept, and the cost of its erection, like that of the transept, was no doubt defrayed from the sums which continued to be offered at the shrine of St. Thomas Cantilupe[42]. The tower (161 ft. high to the top of the pinnacles) is of two stages above the roofs, with buttresses at the angles. (The pinnacles which cap these buttresses are modern, and date from 1830.) The arcades and window-openings, as well as the buttresses, are covered with the ball-flower ornament, which is scarcely anywhere found in such profusion as here, and in the south aisle of the nave of Gloucester; (see that Cathedral).
The Stanbery Chapel (§ XIV.) projects between the great and the eastern transept. The graceful Decorated window of the choir aisle, which rises above it, and the Early English arcades which cover the wall of the choir between the clerestory windows, as well as the windows themselves, (see § IX.,) should here be noticed.
XXVI. On the south side of the Lady-chapel a porch opens to a staircase leading to the crypt. The porch (which is finely recessed) is, like the crypt, of the same date—Early English (see § XVIII.)—as the Lady-chapel, under which it extends. The crypt extends under the whole of the Lady-chapel; and is the solitary example in an English cathedral of a crypt constructed after the end of the eleventh century[43]. It is lighted by plain lancets, and consists of a nave and aisles 50 ft. long, and divided by plain clustered shafts. The crypt was repaired in 1497 by Andrew Jones, “Mercator hujus civitatis,” whose altar-tomb,—covered with an incised slab of large dimensions and elaborate decoration, representing the merchant and his wife—remains in the centre. This crypt is called the “Golgotha”—from its having been used as the charnel or domus carnaria—the place appropriated for the decent reception of disinterred fragments of the bodies of the defunct, and special services for the repose of their souls. Adjoining Worcester, Norwich, and some other cathedrals, a chapel, separated from the cathedral itself, was used for this purpose.