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Article DURHAM CATHEDRAL. ← Page 2 of 4 →
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Durham Cathedral.
to climb the lull , after having filled oneself with the view from the Framwell Gate or Prebend's Bridge , and not open them again till one is fairly within the church . They may be opened then without fear of disappointment . The meagre effect of the outside of
Durham is partly clue to the plainness of its Norman architecture , unrelieved by projecting buttresses , and with its length but little broken by the transept and Chapel of Nine Altars , but chiefly to the havoc made when , at the end of the last century , Wyatt ,
"the Destructive , " was called in to " restore" the cathedral . No cathedral , not even the misused Salisbury , has suffered such irreparable damage in the name of improvement . It is an oft-told tale how , in old John Carter ' s wordsand in spite of
, his earnest remonstrances , about 1780 , " a great repair of the cathedral was made , " and that of so destructive a character that " every house in the nei ghbourhood bore testimony to the wreck of the smaller
decorations suffered by the church in that repair . " The whole of the outside stonework was pared clown several inches to a clean , smooth surface , the mouldings were rechiselled , all decayed members boldly removed , to the grievous loss of the play of light and shadeand tameness and flatness
, substituted for the bold grandeur of the original design , which was improved upon new decorations , the greater part being " run in compo . " The grand north porch —the sanctuary door—lost its watchingcbamberand its sturdy Norman arch was
, bedizened with a vulgar perdendicular canopy and pinnacles ; the turrets of the Nine Altars were finished with ill-proportioned spires , while , by way of compensation , the pyramidal capping of the transept turrets gave place to flimsy quatrefoil
parapets with classical mouldings . The li ght tracery was torn from the lancets of the Nine Altars , except at the south end , and the eastern circle received tracery described by Carter as " not much resembling the work of any period of our ancient
architecture , but totally discordant from the style of the chapel in which it is inserted . " The stately central tower was liberally coated with Roman cement , while—the foulest deed of barbarism committed even bv Wyatt—the Chapter-house , a grand apsidal Norman vaulted apartment , absolutely without a parallel in England , was wilfully
demolished , and a comfortable parlour patched up out of its ruins , in which the cathedral dignitaries might meet without fear of catching cold . Even , as most of our readers know , the destruction of the Galilee , that unique and most characteristic feature of the cathedralwas not only
re-, solved upon , to form a new aud more convenient drive to the prebendal houses , but the lead had been actually removed from its roof and the demolition commenced , when the opportune arrival of a member of the Chapter with more reverence for antiquity
than his brethren saved the burial-place of the Venerable Bede and " the Saracenic grace of Hugh of Puiset ' s Chapel . " We can well conceive that the rude grandeur of this chapel , with its cavernous buttressed front growing out of the living rock , was
offensive to the refined taste of the architect of Fonthill and Ashridge , and that he regarded it as an ugly excrescence the cathedral would be well rid of , but its loss would have been simply irreparable . More remains to be told . It is not generallknown
y how sweeping Wyatt ' s plans for " beautifying " Durham Cathedral were . A volume of architectural drawings exists in the Chapter Library , from which we learn that what this irreverent meddler carried
out forms but a small portion of what he proposed , and we are led almost to admire the frank audacity with which he set to work to polish and refine the barbarous pile committed to his hands , and render it more in harmony with the enli ghtened century which had had the honour of producing so
distinguished an artist . It almost takes one ' s breath away to find Wyatt coolly proposing the destruction of the three towers and the erection of new ones designed by himself " in a more elegant Gothic taste , " the central tower being crowned with a metricious spire . The vulgar cresting which he inflicted on the western towers
makes us shudder at what Wyatt ' s substitutes for these grand old works would have been . Much as this noble pile has suffered , this volume make « us thankful it did not suffer more . The best point to approach Durham Cathedral from is the Prebends' Bridto
ge the S . W . The view of the west front and towers perched on the brink of the precipitous rooky slope , set in a framework of noble trees , with the Wear winding below , is singularly beautiful . The cathedral , too ,
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Durham Cathedral.
to climb the lull , after having filled oneself with the view from the Framwell Gate or Prebend's Bridge , and not open them again till one is fairly within the church . They may be opened then without fear of disappointment . The meagre effect of the outside of
Durham is partly clue to the plainness of its Norman architecture , unrelieved by projecting buttresses , and with its length but little broken by the transept and Chapel of Nine Altars , but chiefly to the havoc made when , at the end of the last century , Wyatt ,
"the Destructive , " was called in to " restore" the cathedral . No cathedral , not even the misused Salisbury , has suffered such irreparable damage in the name of improvement . It is an oft-told tale how , in old John Carter ' s wordsand in spite of
, his earnest remonstrances , about 1780 , " a great repair of the cathedral was made , " and that of so destructive a character that " every house in the nei ghbourhood bore testimony to the wreck of the smaller
decorations suffered by the church in that repair . " The whole of the outside stonework was pared clown several inches to a clean , smooth surface , the mouldings were rechiselled , all decayed members boldly removed , to the grievous loss of the play of light and shadeand tameness and flatness
, substituted for the bold grandeur of the original design , which was improved upon new decorations , the greater part being " run in compo . " The grand north porch —the sanctuary door—lost its watchingcbamberand its sturdy Norman arch was
, bedizened with a vulgar perdendicular canopy and pinnacles ; the turrets of the Nine Altars were finished with ill-proportioned spires , while , by way of compensation , the pyramidal capping of the transept turrets gave place to flimsy quatrefoil
parapets with classical mouldings . The li ght tracery was torn from the lancets of the Nine Altars , except at the south end , and the eastern circle received tracery described by Carter as " not much resembling the work of any period of our ancient
architecture , but totally discordant from the style of the chapel in which it is inserted . " The stately central tower was liberally coated with Roman cement , while—the foulest deed of barbarism committed even bv Wyatt—the Chapter-house , a grand apsidal Norman vaulted apartment , absolutely without a parallel in England , was wilfully
demolished , and a comfortable parlour patched up out of its ruins , in which the cathedral dignitaries might meet without fear of catching cold . Even , as most of our readers know , the destruction of the Galilee , that unique and most characteristic feature of the cathedralwas not only
re-, solved upon , to form a new aud more convenient drive to the prebendal houses , but the lead had been actually removed from its roof and the demolition commenced , when the opportune arrival of a member of the Chapter with more reverence for antiquity
than his brethren saved the burial-place of the Venerable Bede and " the Saracenic grace of Hugh of Puiset ' s Chapel . " We can well conceive that the rude grandeur of this chapel , with its cavernous buttressed front growing out of the living rock , was
offensive to the refined taste of the architect of Fonthill and Ashridge , and that he regarded it as an ugly excrescence the cathedral would be well rid of , but its loss would have been simply irreparable . More remains to be told . It is not generallknown
y how sweeping Wyatt ' s plans for " beautifying " Durham Cathedral were . A volume of architectural drawings exists in the Chapter Library , from which we learn that what this irreverent meddler carried
out forms but a small portion of what he proposed , and we are led almost to admire the frank audacity with which he set to work to polish and refine the barbarous pile committed to his hands , and render it more in harmony with the enli ghtened century which had had the honour of producing so
distinguished an artist . It almost takes one ' s breath away to find Wyatt coolly proposing the destruction of the three towers and the erection of new ones designed by himself " in a more elegant Gothic taste , " the central tower being crowned with a metricious spire . The vulgar cresting which he inflicted on the western towers
makes us shudder at what Wyatt ' s substitutes for these grand old works would have been . Much as this noble pile has suffered , this volume make « us thankful it did not suffer more . The best point to approach Durham Cathedral from is the Prebends' Bridto
ge the S . W . The view of the west front and towers perched on the brink of the precipitous rooky slope , set in a framework of noble trees , with the Wear winding below , is singularly beautiful . The cathedral , too ,