Inside of the minster there is a long and lofty nave, transepts of the same height, and side-aisles and chapels, dim nooks of holiness, where in Catholic times the lamps were continually burning before the richly decorated shrines of saints. In the audacity of my ignorance, as I humbly acknowledge it to have been, I criticized this great interior as too much broken into compartments, and shorn of half its rightful impressiveness by the interposition of a screen betwixt the nave and chancel. It did not spread itself in breadth, but ascended to the roof in lofty narrowness.
A great deal of white marble decorates the old stonework of the aisles, in the shape of altars, obelisks, sarcophagi, and busts. Most of these memorials are commemorative of people locally distinguished, especially the deans and canons of the cathedral, with their relatives and families; and I found but two monuments of personages whom I had ever heard of—one being Gilbert Walmesley, and the other Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, a literary acquaintance of my boyhood. It was really pleasant to meet her there; for after a friend has lain in the grave far into the second century, she would be unreasonable to require any melancholy emotions in a chance interview at her tombstone. It adds a rich charm to sacred edifices, this time-honored custom of burial in churches, after a few years, at least, when the mortal remains have turned to dust beneath the pavement, and the quaint devices and inscriptions still speak to you above….
A large space in the immediate neighborhood of the cathedral is called the Close, and comprises beautifully kept lawns and a shadowy walk, bordered by the dwellings of the ecclesiastical dignitaries of the diocese. All this row of episcopal, canonical, and clerical residences has an air of the deepest quiet, repose, and well-protected, tho not inaccessible seclusion. They seemed capable of including everything that a saint could desire, and a great many more things than most of us sinners generally succeed in acquiring. Their most marked feature is a dignified comfort, looking as if no disturbance or vulgar intrusiveness could ever cross their thresholds, encroach upon their ornamented lawns, or straggle into the beautiful gardens that surround them with flower-beds and rich clumps of shrubbery. The episcopal palace is a stately mansion of stone, built somewhat in the Italian style, and bearing on its front the figures of 1687, as the date of its erection. A large edifice of brick, which, if I remember, stood next to the palace, I took to be the residence of the second dignitary of the cathedral; and in that case it must have been the youthful home of Addison, whose father was Dean of Lichfield. I tried to fancy his figure on the delightful walk that extends in front of those priestly abodes, from which and the interior lawns it is separated by an open-work iron fence, lined with rich old shrubbery, and overarched by a minster-aisle of venerable trees.
WINCHESTER [Footnote: From "Visits to Remarkable Places.">[
BY WILLIAM HOWITT
On entering the cathedral enclosure on its north side from High Street, you are at once struck with the venerable majesty and antique beauty of the fine old pile before you, and with the sacred quietude of the enclosure itself. In the heart of this tranquil city it has yet a deeper tranquillity of its own. Its numerous tombs and headstones, scattered over its greensward, and its lofty avenues of limetrees, seem to give you a peaceful welcome to the Christian fame and resting-place of so many generations. If you enter at the central passage, you tread at once on the eastern foundations of the Conqueror's palace, and pass close to the spot on which formerly rose the western towers of Alfred's Newan Mynstre, and where lay his remains, after having been removed from the old mynstre, till Hyde Abbey was built.
It is impossible to walk over this ground, now so peaceful, without calling to mind what scenes of havoc and blood, of triumph and ecclesiastical pomp, it has witnessed—the butchery of the persecution of Diocletian, when the Christians fell here by thousands; the repeated massacres and conflagrations of the Danes; the crowning of Saxon and of English kings; the proud processions of kings and queens, nobles, mitered prelates, friars, and monks, to offer thanksgivings for victory, or penance for sins, from age to age; and, finally, the stern visitation of the Reformers and the Cromwellian troopers.
The venerable minster itself bears on its aspect the testimonies of its own antiquity. The short and massy tower in the center, the work of Bishop Walkelin, the cousin of the Conqueror, has the very look of that distant age, and, to eyes accustomed to the lofty and rich towers of some of our cathedrals, has an air of meanness. Many people tell you that it never was finished; but besides that there is no more reason that the tower should remain unfinished through so many centuries than any other part of the building, we know that it was the character of the time, of which the tower of the Norman church of St. Cross affords another instance just at hand. In fact, the spire was then unknown.
Having arrived at the west front, we can not avoid pausing to survey the beauty of its workmanship—that of the great William of Wykeham; its great central doorway, with its two smaller side-doors; the fretted gallery over it, where the bishop in his pontificals was wont to stand and bless the people, or absolve them from the censures of the church; its noble window, rich with perpendicular tracery; its two slender lantern turrets; its crowning tabernacle, with its statue of the builder; and its pinnacled side aisles.
I must confess that of all the cathedrals which I have entered, none gave me such a sensation of surprize and pleasure. The loftiness, the space, the vast length of the whole unbroken roof above, I believe not exceeded by any other in England; the two rows of lofty clustered pillars; the branching aisles, with their again branching and crossing tracery; the long line of the vaulted roof, embossed with armorial escutcheons and religious devices of gorgeous coloring; the richly painted windows; and, below, the carved chantries and mural monuments, seen amid the tempered light; and the sober yet delicate hue of the Portland stone, with which the whole noble fabric is lined, produce a tout ensemble of sublime loveliness which is not easily to be rivaled….