A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



The aisles of the presbytery originally ended at the 

 east with apses, though externally their east ends were 

 square. These internal apses were both taken down 

 late in the 13th century, and replaced by square ends 

 with quadripartite ribbed vaults, and at a later date, 

 when the New Building was added, the east walls were 

 pierced with tall panelled arches, giving access to the 

 eastern chapels. In the north aisle the bases of the 

 shafts which carried the arch at the springing of the 

 apse remain, and serve as bases to the western pair of 

 13th-century vaulting-shafts, and in the south wall is 

 a beautiful double piscina, with geometrical trefoil 

 tracery and clustered shafts and responds. It has two 

 projecting drains with fluted corbels and a moulded 

 stone shelf above. It belongs to the time of the 1 3th- 

 century alterations, c. 1280, and there are several 

 others exactly like it in other parts of the church. 



The east end of the south aisle has been altered in 

 the same way and at the same date as the north aisle, 

 but the record of its apse has been perpetuated in the 

 modern pavement by a step following its cur\-e, as 

 disclosed by excavations some years since. 



In the south wall here is a piscina like that in the 

 north aisle, and in the north wall a large double 

 recess, now glazed and used to contain a number of 

 small antiquities found in the cathedral precincts. 



The aisles are vaulted with quadripartite ribbed 

 vaults with stilted transverse arches, and diagonal ribs 

 which have a slightly segmental curve. The trans- 

 verse arches are moulded with a wide fillet between two 

 rolls, and the diagonals have a half-round on the 

 soffit. The latter are somewhat awkwardly fitted to 

 the capitals from which they spring, but are clearly 

 part of the original work, and the vault is contem- 

 porary with the aisle. Each bay of the aisles was 

 lighted by a single round-headed window with jamb- 

 shafts and moulded rear-arch, but only that in the first 

 bay of the north aisle west of the line of the apse now 

 remains. It owes its preservation to the fact that it 

 was blocked in the end of the 13th century by the 

 upper story of the chapel of St. Thomas of Canter- 

 bur)', built against the outside of this bay. In the 

 15 th century it was filled with two-light tracery of 

 the same type as that in the clearstory windows. 

 Below the window is a hatched string and a wall 

 arcade of intersecting arches with plain cushion 

 capitals and moulded bases. The two western bays of 

 the north aisle have lost their original arcades and 

 windows, having been pierced with tall arches leading 

 to the Lady chapel, which formerly stood to the north 

 of the presbytery ; one of the arches is of the date of 

 the Lady chapel, 1272-86, and the other is of the 

 I 5th century, and is evidence of an enlargement of 

 the Lady chapel at that time. Both arches are 

 blocked, the blocking dating from the destruction of 

 the chapel in 1661, and in the blocking in each arch 

 is inserted a three-light 15th-century window, old 

 work re-used. 



In the south aisle the original windows have been 

 replaced by wide five-light windows with segmen- 

 tal heads and geometrical tracery, c. 1 300, the 

 vault-cells next the windows having been rebuilt to 

 accommodate them, but the intersecting arcades re- 

 main intact in each bay. 



The external elevation of the eastern arm of the 

 church has been altered chiefly by the insertion of 

 tracery windows in place of the original lights, but 

 the general outlines of the first design have been 

 preserved. At the eastern angles of the aisles are flat 

 clasping buttresses with angle rolls, and between the 

 windows are pilaster buttresses of the same detail. At 

 the base of the walls is a moulded plinth 2 ft. high, 

 and of 12 in. projection, which is continued with the 

 same section through all the succeeding work as far 

 as the staircase towers flanking the west front of the 

 nave. 



At the level of the sills of the aisle windows is a 

 string with zigzag, and the windows have zigzag in 

 the heads and billet-moulded labels. 



Above the windows and at the level of the tri- 

 forium floor runs a second string with zigzag,' and 

 the triforium was originally lighted by single windows 

 which were set in a continuous wall arcade spaced to 

 give five arches to each bay, the window ' occupying 

 a central arch wider and taller than the others. 

 Over these again came the corbel-table of the aisle 

 roofs with a line of round arches on variously carved 

 corbels. In the apse and the gable ends and west 

 sides of the transepts, where there were no aisles, this 

 part of the wall was ornamented with an arcade of 

 round arches, intersecting on the apse but not elsewhere. 

 The bays of the clearstory were marked off by half-round 

 shafts instead of buttresses, with cushion capitals 

 ranging with the upper corbel-table, which was of 

 the same detail as that of the aisles. In each bay was 

 an arcade of three arches, that in the centre being 

 wider and higher, and containing a window. The 

 main roofs were of rather flatter pitch than at present, 

 and had no parapets. The treatment of the apse 

 varied only in the substitution of large engaged shafts 

 for the pilaster buttresses between the bays on all 

 three stages. 



A parapet with quatrefoil panelling was built over 

 the corbel-table of the clearstory in the second half of 

 the 14th century, while in the apse the parapet is of 

 the 13th century, and has seven circular medallions 

 containing half-length figures. 



The stair turrets at the west end of the apse are 

 finished with an octagonal stage with tall and narrow 

 round-headed openings in each face, capped by an 

 octagonal stone spirelet springing from a cornice of 

 round arches like the corbel-table of the clearstory. 



At the east of the presbytery is a one-story build- 

 ing known as the New Building, five bays wide from 

 north to south, and three bays deep, the eastern bay 

 being half as wide again as the two others. Its 

 external measurements are in round numbers 80 ft. 

 north to south by 58 ft. east to west, and it is lighted 

 by five four-light tracery windows on the east and 

 four windows on each of the north and south sides, 

 two of four lights in the western bays, and two of 

 three lights in the wide eastern bay. The jambs of 

 the windows are carried down below the sills to a 

 stone bench table, the backs of the recesses thus 

 formed being panelled with stone tracery. It is 

 vaulted with a panelled fan vault, and between the 

 windows are buttresses projecting 6 ft. at the base, 

 with two sets-ofF in the height and finishing at the 



^ Of thcie zigzag strings the upper stops 

 at the north-east angle of the north tran- 

 sept, and continues with a plain roll, and 

 the lower at the west of the third bay of 

 the north aisle. 



3 This arrangement may be seen best 

 on the east side of the north transept, at 

 the point where it abutted against the 

 west end of the Lady chapel. Ever)'- 

 where else in the presbytery and transepts 



the original -windows were replaced c, 

 1340 by three-light tracery windows, and 

 the wall arcades destroyed. The walls 

 were heightened and plain parapets added 

 at the same time. 



