DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6914#0086
54
ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES.
that city, which structure he certainly raised between the years 1132 and 1136.
These consist of openings, made in the intersecting parts of semicircular arches,
which cross each other. The ocular evidence of this, taken along with the
ascertained date of the work, is a sufficient proof, that to the accidental Norman
ornament of intersecting arcades, we are indebted for the invention of pointed arches,
and pointed architecture. If any man chooses to dispute the proof, he cannot at
least deny the fact, that open pointed arches, to the number of twenty, were seen
together under intersecting arches, in an English church, between the years 1132
and 1136. As the above-mentioned prelate proceeded in his building, from the
east, or choir end (which on all such occasions was first erected, and rendered fit
for divine service), to the transept, the tower, and the nave of the church, he made
many other pointed arches, some of them obtusely, others acutely pointed; inter-
mixed however, with a still greater proportion of circular and other Saxon work.
In 1138, he built the castle of Farnham, where his pointed arches, resting on
huge Saxon columns, are still to be seen."62 Dr. Milner farther observes, that
pointed arches were introduced into buildings raised by other ecclesiastics in the
same age, in different parts of England, and that they are to be found in abbeys
and churches, erected in Scotland soon afterwards. The tall, narrow windows,
and sharp pointed arcades, which superseded those of circular form, required that
the pillars, on which they rested, should be proportionably light and lofty, " hence
(he continues) it became necessary to chose a material of firm texture for composing
them, and therefore Purbeck marble was adopted. But this substance being found
too weak to support the incumbent weight, the shafts were multiplied, and the
cluster column thus produced. The placing two windows together left an open
space between their heads, which was afterwards filled up with trefoil-lights, and
other similar ornaments. The large east and west Windows, beginning to obtain
about the reign of Edward I., required numerous divisions, or mullions, which, as
well as the ribs and transoms of the vaulting, began to ramify into a great variety
of tracery, variously embellished. The pointed arch, on the outside of a building,
required a canopy of the same form ; which in ornamental work, as in the taber-
nacle of a statue, mounted up, decorated with leaves or crockets, and terminated
in a trefoil. In the same manner the buttresses that were necessary for the strength
of these buildings could not finish, conformably to the general style of the building,
61 " Treatise on Ecclesiastical Architecture," p 78—83.
ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES.
that city, which structure he certainly raised between the years 1132 and 1136.
These consist of openings, made in the intersecting parts of semicircular arches,
which cross each other. The ocular evidence of this, taken along with the
ascertained date of the work, is a sufficient proof, that to the accidental Norman
ornament of intersecting arcades, we are indebted for the invention of pointed arches,
and pointed architecture. If any man chooses to dispute the proof, he cannot at
least deny the fact, that open pointed arches, to the number of twenty, were seen
together under intersecting arches, in an English church, between the years 1132
and 1136. As the above-mentioned prelate proceeded in his building, from the
east, or choir end (which on all such occasions was first erected, and rendered fit
for divine service), to the transept, the tower, and the nave of the church, he made
many other pointed arches, some of them obtusely, others acutely pointed; inter-
mixed however, with a still greater proportion of circular and other Saxon work.
In 1138, he built the castle of Farnham, where his pointed arches, resting on
huge Saxon columns, are still to be seen."62 Dr. Milner farther observes, that
pointed arches were introduced into buildings raised by other ecclesiastics in the
same age, in different parts of England, and that they are to be found in abbeys
and churches, erected in Scotland soon afterwards. The tall, narrow windows,
and sharp pointed arcades, which superseded those of circular form, required that
the pillars, on which they rested, should be proportionably light and lofty, " hence
(he continues) it became necessary to chose a material of firm texture for composing
them, and therefore Purbeck marble was adopted. But this substance being found
too weak to support the incumbent weight, the shafts were multiplied, and the
cluster column thus produced. The placing two windows together left an open
space between their heads, which was afterwards filled up with trefoil-lights, and
other similar ornaments. The large east and west Windows, beginning to obtain
about the reign of Edward I., required numerous divisions, or mullions, which, as
well as the ribs and transoms of the vaulting, began to ramify into a great variety
of tracery, variously embellished. The pointed arch, on the outside of a building,
required a canopy of the same form ; which in ornamental work, as in the taber-
nacle of a statue, mounted up, decorated with leaves or crockets, and terminated
in a trefoil. In the same manner the buttresses that were necessary for the strength
of these buildings could not finish, conformably to the general style of the building,
61 " Treatise on Ecclesiastical Architecture," p 78—83.