Salisbury Cathedral 13th century
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Foundation stones laid in 1220. Entirely Early
English in style apart from the Decorated spire. |
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The C13 has certain motifs in common throughout which can be laid out at once. The windows are lancets, mostly in pairs or triplets and nowhere excessively elongated and narrow. | ||
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They are often shafted outside and mostly inside - nearly always with Purbeck marble shafts. |
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The windows appear with and without tracery, the tracery being of the plate variety. |
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The buttresses are characterized by a group of five closely-placed set-offs (to throw off water) about two thirds up. The base of the cathedral and the buttresses have also many set-offs, and at the sill-level of the windows there is yet another course with four set-offs. The top parapet is panelled with trefoil-headed panels. It rests on a frieze of pointed trefoils with a band of half-dog-tooth between them. | ||
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The panelled parapet and trefoil frieze also appear above the clerestory throughout, but without the dog-tooth. In the clerestory the flat C13 buttresses, as they finish, do not divide the trefoil frieze into sections, but run up into one awkwardly elongated arch. (This applies from the main transepts westwards. View here of the nave.) | ||
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East end of cathedral. Many gables with lancets, some blank. Easternmost gables crocketed. | 
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View from north west. |
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East transept and main transept on north side. Note the unusual fragmentary arches at the sides of the lancets on ground and first floor of the main transept ... a motif hard to explain, and harder to appreciate. Also used on the west facade (below). |
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The North Porch is a very fine piece. ... The N wall has a tall and wide, richly shafted entrance. ... Richly moulded arch. On the upper stage inside, pairs of blank lancets. Detached shafts, moulded capitals, pointed cusping in the arches and the quatrefoils above. They must still be called blank plate tracery, but come very close to bar tracery. | |
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On the first floor two pairs of shafted lancets with a quatrefoiled circle in plate tracery ... and pointed cusping in their heads ... Small dog-tooth in the arches, a quatrefoiled circle in the spandrel. In the crocketed gable two quatrefoiled arches with shafts carrying stiff-leaf capitals. ... | ||
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On the ground stage inside, vigorous blank arcading with detached shafts and relatively simple stiff-leaf capitals. The arcading has pointed cinquecusping in the heads. | ||
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Terribly restored inner portal. Thick shafting l. and r. The stiff-leaf capitals are of Purbeck marble, and those on the l. seem original. Trumeau (central mullion) of four attached shafts with four small hollows in the diagonals - a section which became popular much later. Pointed trefoil arches. The C19 century figure of Christ in the tympanum is placed in a large pointed quatrefoil. | ||
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West facade - details on separate page |
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So now, after pages of embarrassed criticism (of west facade), we can indulge in the examination of the crossing tower and the steeple. ... The C13 stage of the tower, the one against which the roofs abut, has tall blank E.E. (Early English) arches with depressed trefoil heads. Shafts and stiff-leaf capitals ... Then the Dec work begins. Its date, as has already been said, is 1334 etc. Ballflower frieze and blank battlements and then .. | ||
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.. two tall stages. They are studded everywhere with ballflower. Tall two-light windows with circles over. ... Friezes of cusped lozenges and trefoils. All these motifs are an intelligent, up-to-date restating of E.E. motifs of the cathedral. | ||
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The spire is wonderfully slender, and the solution of how to reach the octagon from the square is perfect. Short crocketed pinnacles on the buttresses, in the middles of the sides at the foot of the spire lucarnes under crocketed gables and with pinnacles, and again at the corners taller inner pinnacles rising higher than the lucarnes. They are square, with their own angle buttresses and angle pinnacles, as it were. ... | ||
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If you are in the meadows ... the pinnacles speak individually and form a subordinate preamble to the spectacular rise of the spire. | ||
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The cloisters were begun ... about 1270. There are twelve bays to each walk. In the middle of the garth are two splendid cedar trees ... |  |
Above the N half of the E walk is the library, built in 1445. It has straight-headed cusped two-light windows ... |
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The cloisters introduce the bar tracery of Westminster Abbey to Salisbury, and with a sumptuousness so far quite absent from the design of the cathedral. The lancets which had dominated up to 1270, even with what plate tracery there is, emphasise height, the cloister openings breadth. They are framed by plain buttresses with plain set-offs. Each bay has two-light openings with a deeply moulded quatrefoiled circle. The trumeaux (central mullions) are of a centre shaft with two shafts at r. angles to the wall attached to it and two detached shafts in the direction of the wall - a subtle, wholly successful arrangement. All capitals are moulded. In the lunette above the two pairs is a large circle alternately cinquefoiled and sexfoiled. ... Above the arcade runs a parapet with small quatrefoiled circles, two to each bay. | ||
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The interior of the walks is rib-vaulted throughout, with quadripartite bays and bosses. The ribs and transverse arches have the same thickness and mouldings. ... The walls of the cloister walks are all covered with blank arcading, echoing the openings with their bar tracery. Each bay has two arches with a big sexfoiled circle over. All shafts are detached. | ||
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There is an open space between the cloisters and the nave which is now filled by the glass-roofed restaurant. This picture shows a nave flying buttress carrying a square pinnacle with small blank Decorated arches and tracery. |  |
View from east of projecting west facade. Imitated continuation of clerestory windows of the nave. |
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The chapter house, of about the same date as the cloisters or a little later, ... is an octagon, with gloriously spacious windows of four lights with two quatrefoiled circles and a large octofoiled circle over. ... Frieze without dogtooth and parapet. Buttresses without the multiplied set-offs. | ||
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