Chapter IV: Part I: Norman

Very happy in their choice of situation, the first builders selected an extensive tract of meadow land with a gentle slope from west to east; and consecrated the meadow itself for a burial-ground. Later builders never changed this site; and the church of Edwy and Edgar, and that of the eleventh century, as well as the present one, occupy the ground on which first stood a rude and hastily-constructed edifice of wood. Every one must at once be struck with the ample and unbroken space on all sides, allowing, as it does, full justice to be done to the fair proportions. In mediæval, as in modern, buildings the site is often too limited or too insignificant to do full justice to the architecture. It is otherwise here, and to this charm is added a second which, again, modern architects are apt to ignore. The building follows the natural slope of the ground it occupies; it is not constructed upon an artificial dead level. And the advantage of this in adding to the picturesque appearance becomes evident as we look at the building as a whole from different points of view: it grows upon one. And this effect of the spacious churchyard is still further enhanced by the position of the surrounding houses. There is not an unsuitable building in sight. The beautiful avenue of elms, called the Prebends’ Walk, at the northern side, half-conceals, half-reveals a row of detached houses environed by gardens, some of them in the prosperous days of the collegiate chapter prebendaries’ residences. The buildings of the Grammar School are at the north-west angle. Along the west side are other houses, and the churchyard surroundings are completed by the gardens and partially restored ruins of the palace of Wolsey and of Sandys, and by the open gateway and railing which leave to view the lawn-covered Vicars’ Court with its five houses. The old Whitsuntide ceremonials, in times when Whitsuntide fell ten days later than now, were rendered more impressive by the surrounding bloom; and at no time of the year does the general aspect now present a more charming appearance than at the County Choral Festival in June, when the foliage of the trees, arrived at its first maturity, has not yet lost its early freshness.

The principal gateway is on the west: a simple Norman structure with a niche overhead, in which, before the destructive days of Puritan iconoclasts, was placed a statue. The work on either side dates from the beginning of the nineteenth century. A second and plainer gives entrance on the north by the Prebends’ Walk; and a third by the Vicars’ Court.

There is no eminence from which to get a bird’s-eye view. The western front and towers are commanded from the west gateway, the ground sloping gently. Standing by the corner of the palace and vicars’ gardens we get the south-east view of choir, south transept, and central tower. Going round to the north-east, and standing by the small entrance from the street by the corner house of the Vicars’ Court, the solid Early English choir on the left, the late Norman central tower in the middle, and the elegant Decorated chapter-house with the restored high-pitched roof are grouped together. And the due north view from the north gateway comprises the beautifully broken front from the west tower and north porch to the late Early English of the transept chapel, the whole being flanked on the left by the chapter-house. But the grouping of the three towers can only be properly appreciated from a greater distance: from the meadows on the south-east, where they combine with the palace ruins, or from the more distant view when approaching by rail from Rolleston.

The external dimensions in feet are as follow:--Extreme length, 318, of which the Norman nave and tower comprise 185; extreme length of transepts, 137; breadth of nave, 72; breadth of south transept, about 40; of north, a trifle less; breadth of choir, same as nave, and including the two chapels, 108.

Thus it will be seen that Southwell occupies a place amongst the smaller cathedrals. Not only is it less than Durham, York, and Lincoln, but also than Norwich and Exeter. It is, in fact, a little larger than Rochester. The original Norman choir was of course different. The dedication is to the Blessed Mary the Virgin of Southwell.

The stone chiefly came from quarries in the neighbourhood of Mansfield, twelve or fourteen miles away through Sherwood Forest. That used by the Norman builders is of a dark yellowish hue, while their Early English and Decorated successors found some of a lighter hue with blue-tinted veins. Fortunate in other matters, Southwell was fortunate in the choice of material. That eminent geologist Sir Roderick Murchison once expressed his regret that, when the Houses of Parliament were rebuilt, these quarries were not used. “If the Mansfield stone had been selected, not one pinnacle in that otherwise grand building would have been subjected, as it now was, to perish.” There is no fear of the minster perishing. Nave and transepts have already withstood the storms and rains of seven hundred and fifty years of the climate of the midlands, and choir and chapter-house almost as long. And this stone was chiselled by competent masons, after the fine pointed masonry of the later Norman had taken the place of the ruder work of earlier churches.

=The Central Tower= is a massive building of rather less than 40 feet square, and rises 105 feet from the ground. The decoration of the upper part is divided into two stages, separated by string courses; and the four faces of the same stage are alike. The lower consists of an arcade or series of arches; and, as is so often the case in Norman buildings of the twelfth century, these arches intersect. This same intersecting work is repeated in the corresponding stage of the north-west tower, as well as on either side of the interior of the north porch. The arcade of the upper stage is different in design, inasmuch as the arches are separate and do not intersect. They are seven in number. The space on either side of the central arch is rather more than the others; and the three central arches are pierced for windows, and, like the windows in the other towers, were once divided by a shaft into two lights. Above the upper stage the usual Norman corbel table is carried round the four sides. Originally the tower may have ended with a simple parapet; but if there were any spire, it would probably be of stone, of no great height, and rising from the outer surface of the walls--in fact, little more than a roof of pyramidal shape. The present roof dates from after the fire of 1711. The parapet is an addition, but contains stones with the Norman zigzag and circular hollow work. As the transept gables are similarly ornamented, it is assumed that these stones were removed from there and placed in their present position when the transept roofs were lowered; and accordingly the parapet of the tower is of the same date as the debasing of the transept roof. This--Mr Dimock’s theory--has been generally adopted by experts, and is interesting as an example of how archæologists are enabled to mark even the minor changes in detail. The somewhat elaborately carved pinnacles are, like the parapet, out of place on a Norman tower, although of Norman masonry. Originally placed at the ends of the transept gables, they corresponded with others in the north porch. Seen from below, they look too dwarfed and insignificant for their present altitude.

=The Bells=, eight in number, are in this tower. If the first pair, the gift of Archbishop Kinsius before the Conquest, were ever placed here, they have long since been either destroyed or recast.

An inscription on the wall of the interior, near the north door of the choir, tells us that “Thomas Wymondesold, of Lambeth in the county of Surry, Esquire, gave unto this church a set of chimes and 20 shillings per annum for ever toward the keeping of them. 1693.” Wymondesold’s gift was reduced to a shapeless mass by the above-mentioned fire of 1711, and Ruddall of Gloucester cast a new peal with the following inscriptions:--

1st. Abraham Ruddall of Gloucester cast us all 1721.

2nd. Peace and good neighbourhood.

3rd. Prosperity to this Town.

4th. Prosperity to our Benefactors.

5th. From Lightning and Tempest, Good Lord, deliver us.

6th. Prosperity to the Chapter.

7th. Prosperity to the Church of England.

8th. I to the Church the Living call, and to the Grave do
summon all.

Since then some have been recast and the inscriptions altered--

2nd. G. Mears, founders, London, 1849. 4th. T. Mears of
London, fecit 1819. 5th. T. Mears of London, fecit 1819.

The wish expressed on the sixth bell has unhappily not been fulfilled. The chimes are set to the National Anthem.

=The Nave and Aisles.=--The length, including the west towers, of the external wall is 135 feet, the breadth 73. The division is into seven bays (broken on the north side by the famous porch) separated by buttresses. The effect is massive, stern, and bare to a degree. The buttresses are flat: of the same breadth and thickness throughout, and terminate in the parapet wall, which overhangs sufficiently to receive them. They would seem to have been constructed as much for ornament as for support. The only other relief of the Norman builders was those slightly projecting horizontal bands, the string courses. Two of these go round the whole of the Norman building, including the buttresses, excepting where by later alterations or other causes the continuity is broken. The lower of these, with heavy zigzag or chevron moulding--a peculiarity of late Norman--passes underneath such of the original windows as are left. But, as is so commonly the case, after-ages found that these windows did not give sufficient light, and enlarged several of them. The string course had to be removed to its corresponding position underneath the new windows, and was connected with the old by upright and vertical bands, the material being found in the somewhat similar zigzag mouldings of the sides of the destroyed Norman windows. This ready and economical use of the displaced stonework gives a peculiar appearance to the exterior of the early Perpendicular windows, which architecturally are quite out of place. The higher continuous string course above the aisle windows was not broken from this cause, and remained unaltered until the great west window was inserted. Exceedingly interesting are the small and plain square windows in the aisles above the second string course, intended to give light to the triforium. In the nave and both aisles the projecting eaves have given place to parapets, supported by the old simple yet bold nebule corbel table beneath.

As has been just stated incidentally, the windows of the two nave aisles represent various ages and different styles. Fortunately, from some unexplained reason, one of the original lights has been left intact, that in the north aisle nearest to the north-west tower, and is similar in detail to the lower tier of the transepts. In this we again meet with the zigzag ornament round both the sides and the arch, with outer side shafts supporting a semicircular edge-roll above; while the hood-moulding or dripstone is of the double billet, like the zigzag, a favourite Norman moulding. In the south aisle the three windows nearest to the tower at the west are imitations of the one just mentioned. They were put in about 1847, when the last remains of Booth’s (or Le Vavasour’s) Chapel were removed, and the old foundation near the north-west tower disturbed.

The four windows in either aisle to the east are early Perpendicular of the end of the fourteenth century. They are of three lights, and the arches are four-centred. They have transoms, while the tracery of the upper part is in flowing lines. The outer hood-moulding or dripstone arch terminates with the head-dress of the latter part of the fourteenth century. These windows are poor and meagre, and unworthy of their position; but are historically interesting as specimens of the work of a time when the land had been stricken down and everything upset by the great pestilence. The remaining window--that immediately to the west of the north porch--is modern. A pleasing detail is the central broken string course of either aisle. This is simply a continuation of the plain square abacus or top ornament of the side shafts of the first Norman windows. Broken by both buttresses and windows, it supplements the continuous upper and lower string courses, and assists them in relieving the bareness of the walls.

=The Clerestory of the Nave.=--Rising above the aisles the clerestories constitute one of those features which makes Southwell quite unique amongst English churches. The circular windows lighting up the interior of the nave are so peculiar, as to make the architect, when he first sees them, imagine himself for the moment in Normandy or the German Palatinate; and, in common with other details presently to be noticed, mark off the Norman exterior as belonging to that particular late style and period sometimes called Romanesque. “More singular perhaps than beautiful” is an authoritative criticism passed upon them. In these windows the only ornament is the plain round-patterned mouldings, suggestive of gigantic wedding rings, which encircle them. The parapet and corbel are of the same style as those of the aisle beneath; and there are no buttresses, the round windows alone separating the different bays. Generally when the high-pitched Norman roof has been (as at Southwell) replaced by one of lower elevation, we find that the clerestory windows are inserted at the same time; but here these plain circular windows, lighting up the interior, form part of the original building, and no other church in England possesses the same characteristic.

NORTH PORCH.]

=The North Porch.=--The north side of the nave differs from the south in its possession of this charming feature which occupies the third bay from the west. It is universally cited, with such examples as Sherborne and Malmesbury, as one of the finest specimens left. Perhaps it excels both of these, and certainly adds materially to the general beauty and interest of the north view, while the details are full of interest. Externally it is some 19 ft. broad, the massive walls leaving an internal breadth of about 14 ft., and it projects from the nave about 22 ft. In the outer portal two semi-cylindrical shafts worked into and engaged with the front terminate in capitals with cushion and scalloped mouldings. From these capitals (or, more accurately, from the string course above) spring the arches of two orders, with square, round, and hollow mouldings. That lower continuous zigzag string course, already described, is here utilised in an ingenious manner. Continued from beneath the aisle windows, it passes along the outside walls of the porch. Next it forms the abacus (or top of the capitals) of the pillars of the outer portals, and then doubles round along the interior walls above the arcading, finally losing itself in the outermost capital of the inner portal. Above the outer portal is the gable formed by an angle of about thirty degrees. Three windows, the centre by a frequent arrangement larger than the others, give light to the quaint _paradise_ or upper room. These windows, glazed with diamond panes, have, as elsewhere, their inner arches unbroken by capitals or abaci, and ornamented with the zigzag; but the outer arch has the shafts and capitals, and is less ornamented; and above these the dripstone with the triple nebule and finished off with grotesquely carved heads. The two gable ends are crowned with round turrets pointed at the summit; and the western serves the purpose of a chimney flue to the upper room, being pierced with air holes. When this arrangement was first made it is impossible to say. The interior walls to the height of the continued string course are richly adorned with arcades. These are formed of the beautiful intersecting arches, and rest upon plain stone benches. The inner portal is formed by six receding arches. In the innermost the unbroken and rich zigzag is repeated; in the rest the arches stand upon shafts and capitals, and exhibit great variety of moulding, that next to the innermost having the unusual beakhead. This inner doorway almost comes up to the west door of Rochester in showing what the Norman craftsmen were capable of; and it is a pity that the waggon-vaulted roof of unfinished stone is too plain to harmonise. The oaken doors of the fourteenth century have flowing tracery carved on the wood. Access to the upper room or paradise is obtained from the triforium. The fireplace, chimney, and cupboards, made out of the thickness of the walls, show the dwelling-place of the sacrist, whose duty it was to sleep in the church that he might be at hand to ring the bells and perform other offices. This paradise over a Norman porch has set archæologists to work in order to find others; and they have succeeded in discovering one only, that of Bredon, in Worcestershire. But the peculiarities of this member of the north front of the cathedral are its least charm.

The outer archway and gable, the intersecting arcades of the inside walls, and the glorious inner portal, are matched by the way in which the whole combines with the varied architecture of the north front. In the floor is the slab of the grave of some unknown person who died in 1536. The inscription is illegible, but the “tau” =T= cross and heart have been deciphered. Is it by any chance that the last sacristan’s clerk of the old order of things elected that his lifeless remains should sleep their long last sleep underneath the time-honoured chamber where he had been wont to take his nightly rest?

=Booth’s Chapel.=--The curious, by scanning closely the south wall of the nave near the south-west tower and the adjoining ground, may discern some recent alterations. It is the site of a chantry chapel dedicated to St. John the Baptist, and erected about 1280 by one of the prebendaries Henry le Vavasour. This means that Le Vavasour gave or bequeathed some small endowment to support a priest whose duty it was to celebrate a specified number of masses for the repose of the soul of some particular person, probably of Le Vavasour himself. At first it was always called after the patron saint. Archbishop William Booth (1452-65), who enlarged it, was buried here; and his brother, Archbishop Laurence Booth (1476-80) endowed two more chantries to Our Lady and St. Cuthbert. He had previously (1457-76) been Bishop of Durham, and hence St. Cuthbert’s name. At the time of his death he was busy in improving the chapel, and directed in his will that his body was to be interred in the south side. It is now impossible to trace the exact spot where the remains of these two prelates, who were so attached to Southwell, and who died there, were laid, nor of those others whom we know by the wills proved before the chapter to have been buried inside. The second chantry and altar thus founded in 1480 are the only dedication to the Blessed Virgin within the minster, although the church itself was named in her honour; for there never has been any Lady Chapel properly so called. Yet this name is given to the chapel by William Enkersol, chantry priest of St. John the Baptist. In his will he directed “my bodie to be buryed in the churche yerde of our ladie of Suthwell beforesaide of the est side _of our ladie is chapel_.” From the death of Archbishop Laurence the building was called Booth’s Chapel; and the only chantries we are able to localise are the three here. Dickinson tells us that the windows formerly contained the coats of arms of the Booth family and their connections. While still a chantry, it was also the Grammar School under the direction of the prebendary of Normanton, _ex officio_ chancellor. As the Grammar School it continued until in the year 1784 it was demolished on the ground that it marred the symmetry of the buildings; and on the site of the old chantry house the present school was built, after the chapel had been its home for nearly four hundred years. During some alterations in 1847 the wall of the aisle fell in, and was then restored to its present state. In its later days the chapel was also used as the library; and when pulled down, the books and manuscripts were deposited in the north transept chapel of the nave.

WEST DOOR.]

=The West Front.=--The western door has a striking resemblance to the still more beautiful inner one of the north porch, and likewise illustrates the care bestowed by Norman artificers upon this part of their edifices. It is of five arches; and here again the innermost arch is unbroken and profusely adorned with the familiar zigzag. The outer four rest upon shafts with scalloped capitals, and are alternately ornamented with the edge-roll and zigzag, two with each kind of moulding; and the hood-moulding above is of the double billet. The oaken doors, of the same date as those of the north porch, are covered with elaborate iron scroll work. Very beautiful is the effect of doorway and door; and we wish the same could be said of the window, but we have unhappily come to the great eyesore and disfigurement of the building. For this great west window takes up almost the whole space between the towers from doorway to summit. The style is late Perpendicular--probably not earlier than 1450. It is of seven lights, with many mullions and transoms and much tracery. In itself this does not harmonise or blend with Norman architecture, and the straight perpendicular lines of the tracery are inelegant; but the chief fault is the enormous size, occupying the entire centre of the front and, without exaggeration, suggestive rather of a railway station or the Crystal Palace than of a Norman nave. The string courses of the two towers tell us the probable size and position of the original windows, even though not connected from tower to tower; so do the transepts, and suggest three lights one above the other, either arched as in the nave aisles, or circular as in the clerestory, with perhaps at the top a small square window like those beneath the clerestory. What windows the Normans put in they put in after some such fashion as this. Then came the Early English architects, and they may have inserted larger lancet-headed lights, which would match well enough with the rest, and display no such incongruity as we now see. Rochester Cathedral and the little-known priory church of Cartmel are two other typical examples of this fifteenth-century want of taste. Can we then assign any reason for this? I think we can, as has been already foreshadowed in the description of the four eastern windows of the nave aisles. Norman windows were small for two reasons: light was not valued, and glass was scarce, if used at all, for we cannot trace glass prior to the closing years of the twelfth century. Early English builders made their windows larger than the Norman, and the Decorated still further increased the size. But both performed their work in such due proportion as to take away the idea of gloom and add to the beauty. So things went on until in the middle of the fourteenth century came that terrible pestilence which, among other and more important things, in some buildings seems to have broken the orderly and systematic evolution of our architecture. The old school appears to have died out, and the new were not always mere copyists or followers who made gradual alterations of merely minor importance, but alas! sometimes parodists.

Certainly we owe much to men like William of Wykeham; but let us in our ecclesiastical architecture fix upon the exact year of 1350. Let us compare in the same building what was finished before this with what was finished after, and we arrive at this result--evolutionary development of beauty before, evolutionary development of ugliness after. Undoubtedly this theory works out at Southwell. The north porch and west doorway are more beautiful than any earlier Norman; the Early English choir is more beautiful than these; but the great glory of Southwell is neither nave nor choir, but the chapter-house of 1290, while the least beautiful parts are the eastern windows of the nave aisles of a century later, and worst of all this great west window of the fifteenth century. Let those whose recollections go back twenty years add the flattened and debased roofs that everywhere obtained, and the minster surely points the moral and adorns the tale. The improvements of men are often more destructive than the hand of time.[16]

The height of the western towers is 99 feet, and with the modern spires 149 feet; the external base a square of 23 feet. They are divided into seven stages.

The buttresses, flat and broad, are placed near the angles, and extend to the height of the parapet--that is to say, to the summit of the fifth stage, while the different stages are separated by plain string courses. In the second stage from the ground the west windows are imitation Norman of quite recent introduction, copied from the original in the nave aisle and transepts, for the Normans themselves left these lower stages blank. Formerly Decorated windows of three lights of the time of Edward III., with double foliated tracery, were inserted, and that of the southern tower, after various vicissitudes, has found a home in one of the gardens of the Vicars’ Court. The slits piercing the wall at different heights near the outer angle are staircase windows. The fifth stage has an arcade of three round arches on each face; the centre, which has zigzag mouldings, pierced for lights. It is when we come to the sixth stage, the first above the base of the roof, that we notice an interesting difference in the work of the two towers. Here the Normans artistically began their more elaborate decoration, so as to finish off their work gracefully. In the northern tower is an arcading of intersecting round-headed arches, similar to those of the central tower, and in the interior of the north porch; but in the southern tower the design differs, for the workmen caused the arches to stop at the point of intersection, the upper stones being omitted. The result is, that these arches are not round-headed, but lancet-shaped. Intentionally or unintentionally, the round Norman dies away into the pointed Gothic of Early English. Was the pointed arch invented in this way? This used to be maintained, and there is something to be said in favour of a theory so ingenious; but the general consensus of opinion amongst experts is not to extend inferences from this interesting peculiarity too far. The pointed arch, in its use upon a large scale for doorways, aisles, windows, and the like, it is now held, was of independent origin. The ornamentation is continued in the top stage, where the arcades are similar to those of the fifth, excepting that the central light is larger and double. The Normans, when they crowned their towers with spires at all, generally made them correspond in plan. Thus to the square towers of Southwell they would have added, if they added anything, pyramidal or square spires, and these would be of no great height; but we do not know how they finished off here, and are equally ignorant of any early alterations. Engravings up to the fire of 1711 (which has to be so frequently mentioned) show spires which seem too lofty and tapering for Norman work; but no one is satisfied as to their date. After the fire, similar ones of wood and sheeted lead took their place. At the beginning of this century the lower part of the northern tower threatened danger, and the spires, being ignorantly thought too heavy for safety, were removed, and parapets and corner pinnacles to match the central tower substituted.

The restoration under the auspices of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners included the addition of spires 50 feet high, after the pattern of those removed, and this was accomplished by 1880. There will always be a difference of opinion as to whether there was any gain, for these spires do not match the flat summit of the central tower. It is not only that while all three still possessed the same pattern of summit that they were cited as amongst the finest specimens of their kind; but so great an authority as Mr E.A. Freeman, whose knowledge of architecture extended over Western Europe, was always wont to declare that the grouping of the three, as he saw them before 1880, was as nearly as possible perfect. And it is extremely doubtful whether the new spires resemble the original Norman at all. The straight lines of the string courses, and the flat buttresses of the towers added to the clerestory windows, give the peculiar tone and character to the nave, and assist in marking it off as belonging to that Norman style, more Continental than English, called Romanesque.[17]

=The Transepts=, or the transept (for the term is sometimes used in the singular), were intended to carry out the idea of a cross. In such early buildings as the basilican churches of Rome they are represented by a space at the east end, and the head of the cross is only an apse. In course of time arms were extended, especially towards the east, as in the original Norman choir of Southwell, and the Early English choir is almost as long as the nave. Still later, the Decorated nave of York was made of the same length as the choir. At Southwell the dimensions are 128 feet by about 40, but owing to the chapel on its eastern side, the north front is not quite equal to the south. With exceptions comparatively slight, to be mentioned presently, the Norman work has not been tampered with.

Of the three string courses mentioned in the description of the nave, the highest and the lowest are here continued, and above them a third, level with the base of the clerestory; the three together dividing the different fronts into four stages, which are further relieved by buttresses reaching up to the corbel tables. The windows of the second stage are of the usual pattern of the original aisle windows of the nave. In the third stage they are larger, and the inner arches have the edge-roll, while the outer have large, rude cable moulding of a peculiar pattern--“a series of what is called the double cone, arranged spirally after the fashion of the ordinary cable moulding.” The hood is of three overhanging rows of a small square-footed nebules. The transoms and mullions are later and questionable additions. The topmost stage has the circular windows like those of the clerestory; but in the north transept there is the cable moulding of the usual pattern, alternating with a special row of beads instead of the plain rounds or “large wedding rings.” The gables of the north and south fronts, low pitched and without windows, are exceedingly singular and striking, the whole surface being filled in with zigzag and small circles, incised in the north front and embossed in the south. Altogether these details display many peculiarities, and one writer describes the general effect as “almost barbaric.” The bear on the north gable was formerly in the workshop of one of the builders employed, and from thence found its way to Upton Hall, two miles away, and elsewhere. It was placed in its present place on the supposition that it originally occupied the same; and a modern lion to match now adorns the south gable.

In the south front facing the palace is a doorway of moderate size, which was restored in 1847. It is original Norman of three orders, profusely enriched with zigzags, and of the usual pattern, the inner order continuous, and the two outer arches resting upon detached jamb shafts, with the zigzag string course running over all as a hood-mould. There was no corresponding door in the north transept, for that shown in old engravings, an after-addition, has been filled up. A residence stood on the site of the palace from the earliest times, and this south door was intended for the use of the inhabitants. In the east wall of the south transept two short buttresses, which stop in the third stage, and the pattern and arrangement of the stones show that a chapel with an apse has been pulled down; and the former existence of this explains the absence of windows excepting in the top stage.

DOORWAY FACING THE PALACE.]

With the transepts we have come to the end of the existing Norman exterior; and the present is a suitable place to add a few remarks on the roofs, and on the Norman choir which has been pulled down and superseded.

In both late Norman and Early English work the roof was generally high pitched; and the marks on each face of the central tower proved that the entire roof was elevated to an angle of about forty-five degrees. In course of time the ends of the beams became decayed, and then in a degenerate age ensued an unhappy change. In order that the work might be cheaply done, the rotten ends were sawn off, and the old beams still used; but, so as to make their now shortened dimensions of sufficient length, the high pitch had to give way to one much lower. A general rule may be laid down that whenever a twelfth-century roof has been lowered the cause and the method were of this nature.

When this was done at Southwell we do not know, but shall probably be not far out of our reckoning in assuming that the low roof and the west window, both out of place, were the work of the same designer and the same time. Thoroton’s “History of Notts” and Hollar’s engravings in Dugdale’s _Monasticon_ both show the low roof. After the great fire the restoration was carried out by the ignorant and indifferent chapter on the same lines; and the material itself was poor and covered with slate. “The poor church has become,” complained Mr Dimock, “in comparison with what it once was, mutilated, debased, and earth clinging; a wretched lifeless monument.” And in endorsing this his friend Mr E.A. Freeman, in his characteristic _Saturday Review_ style, added--“A poor parody of its former self,” “the mutilated wreck of storm and fire, the victim of a base economy which executed essential repairs at the smallest possible cost, and brutally pulled down what it was inconvenient to restore.”[18] But these two and others of a like mind and a like authority were fortunately able to influence that slowly-moving corporation, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners; and at length that body resolved to devote part of the corporate revenues of the dissolved and extinct chapter to a thorough restoration after the designs of Mr Ewan Christian. In 1879-80 the roofs, excepting the choir, were restored to their original pitch, and the old material was cast aside for massive English oak covered with cast-lead. In this not only was the external roof made after the original pattern, but, in thus going back to archæological correctness the dignity and stateliness of Archbishop Thomas the Second’s minster were greatly enhanced. Looked at, then, from either point of view--that of antiquity or that of beauty--it is difficult to see how exception can be taken for leaving out of our estimate the western towers the two combine. Yet, at the time, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings was up in arms, and Mr Christian’s noble conceptions vigorously opposed. A wordy war of the roofs followed, and it was gravely contended, although the four faces of the central tower told their own tale of the pitch of the original roofs, that the taking away of the flattened floor of 1711 was an act of vandalism. Had this low covering been constructed on Norman lines, it would have been another matter; Mr Christian would then have been in a dilemma as to whether archæology or beauty ought to be satisfied. As things really were, both were on his side. Fortunately the controversy was useless, and Mr Christian and his skilled workmen had their way. It is amazing that any highly-cultivated body of men, students of art in art’s highest phases, should ever have raised such a storm in a tea-cup; but when we come to the interior of the choir they will appear in a light even worse.

The foundations show that before the present Early English choir a Norman choir extended eastwards from the base of the central tower to a length of 59 feet--that is to say, to less than half of its beautiful successor. It had north and south aisles of about 40 feet in length, terminating in apses. In all probability it was of the same date as the nave and transepts, and not part of the earlier church existing in the eleventh century, for there are sufficient marks upon the east side of the central tower to suggest that the triforium and clerestory corresponded to the nave, in which case they would naturally be of the same date. The external breadth was the same as now, but the extra thickness of Norman walls made the internal breadth about a foot less.[19]

It becomes, then, comparatively easy to picture to ourselves in rough outline the Norman church of the twelfth century as a whole. Substitute for the present choir one reaching only some 60 ft. eastwards of the central tower, with aisles and clerestory similar to the nave, and terminating with a rectangular eastern wall. Make the aisles terminate with apses, and add to the east face of either transept a short and broad apsidal chapel. Next add windows after the patterns of the transepts and put a high-pitched roof everywhere with overhanging eaves and no parapets; and we have a general idea. The one difficulty is how to crown the tower summits. Mr J.H. Parker seemed to think that, judging by such stone specimens as are still left, wherever in late Norman there is anything to be called a spire at all, it is of low proportions, “little more than a pyramidal roof, but becoming gradually elongated as time advanced, and so leading the way to the gracefully elevated spire proper of the Early English.” We may then finish off the three towers with pyramids of four sides and overhanging eaves.

The date of the Norman work can be disposed of in a few words. Archbishop Thomas the Second wrote his letter to the people of Notts, asking for contributions for the building of their mother church, during his episcopate, which began in 1109 and lasted only six years. This evidence is corroborated by the building itself. The general good workmanship, the fine pointed masonry, and the Romanesque details of the exterior synchronise with the archbishop’s letter, as do the edge-roll flanked by hollows, the more elaborate zigzag and other mouldings, which could only have been made with a skilfully-used chisel. From 1110 to 1115 is then the date of commencement, while it is well not to attempt to decide the duration of the building operations. Amongst others, the naves of Durham, Norwich, and Rochester are contemporary.