CITY OF DURHAM 



courses to the extremities of the bay, and in 

 both cases the back of the wall is carried by a 

 pair of two-centred arches springing from a 

 central shaft, circular on the north and octa- 

 gonal on the south. The clearstory string is 

 like that of the triforium. The clearstory has 

 on either side a pair of pointed windows, each 

 of two uncusped lights, those on the north 

 having a plain circle in the head ; the twin rear- 

 arches, which are enriched with the dog-tooth, 

 spring from marble nook shafts with foliage 

 capitals and moulded bases flanked by stone 

 shaft-rolls round which the main capitals are 

 continued, and are received upon short stone 

 shaft-rolls with similar capitals attached to the 

 central pier, the lower part of which is cut away 

 for the wall-passage and rests upon an isolated 

 cluster of marble shafts with elaborately carved 

 capitals and moulded bases of the same type as 

 those of the nook shafts. The wall-passage is 

 entered from the western clearstory of the Nine 

 Altars, and is not continued westward beyond 

 this bay. The openings in the jambs have 

 shouldered heads like those of the wall-passage 

 openings in the Nine Altars, and the lintel 

 supporting the upper part of the central pier 

 has hollow-chamfered edges filled with carved 

 ornament. 



As has been pointed out above, the piers 

 between this bay and the next belong mainly 

 to St. Calais' work, but their faces have been 

 made flush with the adjacent walling by the 

 cutting away of the shafted responds of the 

 former sanctuary arch. The junction of the 

 old and new work is clearly shown by the changes 

 in the masonry which occur at this point, the 

 small and comparatively irregular coursing of 

 the 13th-century builders giving place to 

 the still more irregular ' making good ' of the 

 facing of the truncated piers, which is in turn 

 succeeded by the regularly-coursed ashlar of the 

 original bays. The flush surface of each pier is 

 masked by a tall arcade of three trefoiled arches, 

 the gabled canopies of which extend to the sill- 

 level of the triforium, while the shafts upon 

 which they are carried rest on carved corbels 

 placed at a distance from the sanctuary floor 

 equal to about one-third of the whole height 

 from the floor to the triforium. The shafts, 

 which are alternately of stone and marble, are 

 banded, and have capitals richly carved with 

 foliage, birds and grotesques ; the arches are 

 moulded with a deep hollow filled with rich 

 sculpture, and the gabled canopies are crowned 

 with rich finials and crockcted with foliage in 

 which occur human figures in miniature niches 

 and birds of a most naturalistic type. The 

 corbels of the shafts are treated in the same 

 style of elaboration, being carved with human 

 and grotesque forms. Below this arcade is a 

 band of arcaded panelling consisting of six 



trefoiled arches springing from shafts with plain 

 capitals and inclosed within a square containing 

 label, and between the panelling and the floor 

 is an aumbry with double doors. The tri- 

 forium string-course is stepped upwards as it 

 crosses the pier, clearing the canopies, and is 

 again dropped to join the plain string-course of 

 the original bays.^" Immediately above the 

 raised portion of the string-course is the richly 

 carved corbel upon which the short triple shafts 

 of the present easternmost transverse are carried. 

 These consist of a central stone shaft flanked by 

 two slighter marble shafts, all having elaborately 

 sculptured capitals. 



The present high vault of the quire belongs 

 to the period of the 13th-century reconstruction. 

 The irregularity which St. Calais' method of 

 spacing must have entailed in the sizes of the 

 compartments of the original high vault has 

 already been pointed out. 



The entire rebuilding of the single bay next 

 the apse, however, and the removal of the great 

 sanctuary arch by which it was separated from 

 the double bays, rendered it possible approxi- 

 mately to equalise all the compartments except 

 the westernmost. The new transverse arches, 

 which are of the two-centred form, were all made 

 slighter and of equal size, the double compart- 

 ment system being abandoned in favour of a 

 series of single quadripartite compartments, and 

 as it was necessary to keep the crown of the 

 vault as nearly as possible at the old level, the 

 centres of those transverses which are carried 

 by the old points of support are dropped below 

 their springing. In consequence of this re- 

 arrangement of the vault, only the middle 

 shafts of the responds of the old transverses 

 of two orders between the double bays are 

 required to carry the new transverses at this 

 point, and the shafts on cither side, which 

 carried the outer order of the old transverses, 

 now receive the diagonals. The short flanking- 

 shafts rising from the triforium sill upon which 

 the old diagonals were received, being thus 

 rendered useless for their original purpose, were 

 utilised to support slender marble shafts with 

 foliated capitals from which the present stilted 

 wall-ribs spring. The triple attached shafts 

 standing upon the triforium sill in the middle 

 of each bay received as before the transverses 

 and diagonals of the vault, and the vaulting 

 shafts next the responds of the eastern arch of 

 the crossing, which were necessarily left un- 

 touched, still continued to discharge their 

 original functions, the slender shafts of the 

 wall-ribs being supported by carved corbels. 



^ On the north side it clcirs the two eastern 

 canopies only, its junction wth the original string- 

 course being masked by the finial of the western 

 canopy. 



105 



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