Fig. 75.—Chapel of St. Joseph of Arimathea, Glastonbury. Interior View.
a form of peculiar elegance and originality; the base moulds are of noble form, wholly differing from those in France. The turrets at the angles are of great beauty. The whole shows symptoms of a perfect knowledge of French developments, but the only distinctive imitation of them is in the capitals, which display, in many instances, the crochet form, but with a beauty and freedom of treatment peculiarly their own, differing not only from the French examples, but from the great majority of English ones, and exercising a strong local influence, extending from Somerset along the north side of the Bristol Channel, and reaching even the distant Cathedral of St. David’s. The church agrees in its details with the chapel, but its remains are grievously fragmentary. The triforium was united
Fig. 76.—Cathedral of St. David’s. Internal Bay of Nave.
with the pier arcade in a manner I do not recollect in any other Pointed church, though it is seen on a round-arched form at Oxford, and in the early portion of Jedburgh Abbey. The piers are beautifully clustered, as is suggested by the multifarious destinations of their parts, one portion being to carry the vaulting of the aisles; a second, the lower tier of pier-arches; a third, the upper tier; and a fourth, the higher vaulting. It is distressing to think how little of this most glorious church remains. It was probably unequalled by any transitional church in England, but has actually—even up to our own day—been used as a stone quarry!
I should have mentioned that in the chapel the pointed vaulting is used in its fully-developed form—both main arches and side cells being pointed.