CITY OF DURHAM 



later altar designed hy Scott. The ' cherubim 

 faces ' complained of by Peter Smart have disap- 

 peared, but holes on the faces of the pillars mark 

 their position. 



Two brass chandeliers, dating from 1751, 

 hang in the quire ; another and larger one has 

 been lost. 



THE CROSSING was designed to receive a 

 vault, but it is impossible now to say whether the 

 vault was built. In each of the four internal angles 

 is a single attached shaft ; these shafts are original 

 up to rather more than half the height from the 

 springing of the crossing arches to the gallery 

 above, but the walling shows that there has 

 never been a vault below the gallery level.*^ It 

 is possible that no central tower was built, the 

 crossing being perhaps covered with a low 

 pyramidal roof; but, supposing a tower of some 

 sort to have been erected, it seems to have been 

 rebuilt or heightened in the latter half of tlie 

 13th century by Prior Hugh de Derlington, and 

 it was this upper structure or bell-tower which 

 was set on fire by lightning and destroyed in 

 May 1429. It seems to have been constructed 

 largely of timber, and was surmounted by a small 

 cupola covered with copper or brass. The new 

 tower which took its place was ' so enfeebled and 

 shaken ' by 1458 that doubts were entertained 

 as to its standing for any length of time, and its 

 rebuilding, as already stated, was carried out in 

 1470-76, the lantern or bell-chamber not being 

 completed till about fifteen years later. Above 

 the arches of the crossing the great tower rises 

 some 150 ft., its total height above the ground 

 being 218 ft. The internal gallery is reached by 

 doorways with crocketed ogee hood-moulds, 

 one in the middle of each of the four walls, and 

 is carried on corbels. It has a parapet pierced 

 with quatrefoils in circles and a moulded 

 coping ; the alternate corbels are carved with 

 grotesques, and two on the west side bear respec- 

 tively the arms of Bishops Booth and Langley." 

 Between the gallery and the great windows the 

 wall surface on either side the doorways is 

 covered with an arcade of tall cinquefoiled arches 

 set in pairs, each pair below a crocketed canopy 

 and separated from the next by slender buttresses 

 of two stages. The arcading stands on a project- 

 ing string-course in which are set four-leaf 

 flowers and small corbels supporting the but- 

 tresses. Two of these corbels are carved with 

 the rebus of Prior Richard Bell (1464-78) and a 



** Bilson, Jrch. Jour. Ixxix, 133 ; 'if, however, the 

 usual type of Norman lantern tower was used any 

 vault would be above this level.' Mr, Bilson's paper 

 is, by permission, made use of, and his conclusions 

 foUowed in the present description. 



*' A third has a lion passant. Langley's arms are 

 diflScult to account for, the work being undoubtedly of 

 Booth's time. 



third with a mermaid. Above the arcade are a 

 string-course and band of quatrefoils at the 

 level of the sills of the great windows, in front of 

 which the quatrefoil panels are pierced and the 

 band forms the parapet of a wall passage which at 

 this level goes round the whole tower. Imme- 

 diately above the windows the tower is vaulted 

 with a quadripartite vault subdivided by inter- 

 mediate and lierne ribs with carved bosses at 

 the intersections and having a large well-hole. 

 The diagonal ribs spring at the angles from round 

 vaulting-shafts and the transverse ribs from a 

 shaft in the middle of each wall carried on a cor- 

 bel. Above the vault is the beU-ringers' floor, 

 and over this again the bell chamber. Externally 

 the tower is of two unequal stages above the 

 roofs. The loftier lower stage has on each side 

 two tall pointed windows, lighting the crossing 

 below the vault, each of two lights divided by a 

 transom and covered by ogee crocketed labels 

 with tall finials. The windows are flanked and 

 separated by narrow panelled pilasters, each with 

 figures in the lower panels. This stage is divided 

 from that above by a narrow external gallery, 

 reached by a doorway in the north wall, called 

 the Bell-ringers' Gallery, which has a pierced 

 embattled parapet. The upper, or bell chamber, 

 stage has also two pointed windows on each side, 

 each of two lights, with ogee crocketed labels, 

 and slender buttress between, and finishes 

 with a pierced embattled parapet. The roof is 

 leaded. There are double buttresses at each 

 angle of the tower, carried up its fuU height, in 

 the front of which are canopied niches containing 

 statues. The higher stages above the main roofs 

 are reached by a staircase in the south-west 

 angle, entered from the roof space of the south 

 transept. 



In 1 8 10 the exterior of the upper stage was 

 cased in cement, and the whole tower ' made to 

 suffer serious indignities,' but at the restoration 

 of 1859 the cement was removed and the whole 

 of the upper stage refaced in stone. The statues, 

 which had been taken down in 18 lo,** were re- 

 instated and thirteen new ones added. The 

 exterior of the tower was much altered in detail 

 at this time.*^ Massive squinches in the angles 

 of the upper stage may point to an intention to 



*^ The statues, twenty-seven in number, were 

 removed and placed in the Chapel of the Nine Altars 

 round the sides of St. Cuthbert's platform ; several 

 were put back before the restoration. Boyle, Guide 

 to Durh. 329. 



** Greenwell, op. cit. 93. The cresting of the 

 parapet of the lower stage is entirely of the 1 8 10 

 cement. The outer surface of the tower, which was 

 in an advanced stage of decay (especially the 1 8 59 

 work), was repaired, and cracks in the walls mended 

 vrith tile-stitching between 1921 and 1923. What 

 Uttle mediaeval masonry remained on the outer faces 

 was in very bad condition. 



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