Lectures on the rise and development of medieval architecture; vol. 1

by Sir George Gilbert Scott

Fig. 118.—Circular Window, West Front, Peterborough Cathedral.

Peterborough once possessed a noble work, in the latter part of the century, in its Lady Chapel, but only a few fragments remain. Its mutilated cloister, the gateway to the bishop’s palace, and the ruins of the infirmary, are beautiful works of this period. I know few cathedrals which, externally, I more enjoy than Peterborough. In old coaching days I used often to pass through at between four and five in the morning, and if daylight permitted, I made it a point of conscience to run round the cathedral while the mail bags were in course of arrangement; and never will the impression it produced on my mind be effaced.

Fig. 119.—Petersborough Cathedral.

We come here into a country replete with village churches, many of which are in our style. Warmington, for instance, between here and Oundle, is an almost perfect thirteenth-century church, and I only mention it as one specimen, for time would fail me to enter upon even an enumeration. Off to the northeast, too, there is West Walton, with its splendid and unique detached tower—an almost unequalled example; and nearer at hand are the mournful and tottering relics of the sister Abbey of Crowland, the details of whose Western front are hardly to be surpassed, and are the more interesting as having been evidently the work of the architect to the eastern part of Lincoln Cathedral. Even the stone is from Lincoln, though it is a material not used in the district.

As you go from Peterborough to Lincoln, whichever road you take, there are endless series of village churches, as well as others of greater pretensions. Stamford is rich in work of this age, but I will only allude to the churches of St. Mary and All Saints. Close by is the beautiful Early English tower of Ketton. Grantham possesses the most stately steeple (next only to Salisbury) in the kingdom; and on another road I may mention Frampton, as having the most perfect of all simple Early towers and spires that I know. But let us hasten on to the crowning glory of the district, whose lordly towers preside in serene majesty over the whole surrounding country.

No English cathedral is, externally, so imposing as that of Lincoln, nor do I recollect any abroad which, as a whole, surpasses it; and nearly the whole of its sublime architecture belongs virtually to this century, though in actual date it begins a few years earlier, and ends a few years later.

It is the custom to speak of Salisbury as the great typical example of the Early English style, and its unity and completeness may warrant the claim; but both for the grandeur of the whole and the artistic beauty of every part, and also as a complete exponent of English architecture throughout the whole duration of its greatest period, Lincoln far surpasses it. Its leading features form a perfect illustration, and that on the grandest scale, of the entire history of our architecture, from the last years of the twelfth to the early part of the fourteenth century.

As I have so often mentioned, the Pointed style commences here with the choir, the smaller transept, and perhaps the chapter-house,[54] all of which seem to have been erected before the year 1200 by Bishop Hugh. It is commonly stated that his architect was a Frenchman from Blois; and M. Lassus broadly states that he reproduced at Lincoln, in 1188, the design of a church commenced at Blois in 1138. I am not able to speak as to the authorities on which these statements are founded, but I must say that the internal evidence afforded by the building itself gives it, so far as I can judge, little or no support. In the first place, an eastern transept, in addition to that at the main crossing, is much more frequent in England than in France; whether the cathedral of Blois (now destroyed) possessed this I do not know. In the second place, the polygonal chapter-house is an equally English feature. In the third place, one of the most remarkable characteristics of this work is the nearly universal use of the round abacus—that distinctively English detail—and that at a period somewhat earlier than that of its customary predominance. The general distribution of the parts seems to me rather English than French, and though the work displays some idiosyncrasies, I do not see in them anything to indicate a French origin, unless it be in the capitals of the main pillars; indeed, it is a work in which distinctively English characteristics appear in a somewhat advanced state of development. As to its being a reproduction of a work commenced at Blois in 1138, the assertion carries with it its own refutation; for, in an age of restless progress, is it likely they would take the trouble to bring over a foreign architect of so retrograde a taste as to ignore the artistic progress made in his own country during half a century? In fact, the wonder of the work is being so much in advance of its age, and that advance is not in a French but an English direction. The Church of St. Nicholas, at Blois, is in the Early Pointed style of the latter half of the twelfth century, but bears not the least resemblance to this; it is of the same character which is usual in French transitional works, and its carving is strictly Byzantine, not a trace of which have I observed in Bishop Hugh’s work. If, then, a French architect was engaged here, he must not only have made over the details of his work wholly to Englishmen, but have studiously followed English forms in the general features.[55]