CITY OF DURHAM 



is still in position. The ring hangs from the 

 jaws of a grotesque head, the eyes of which, 

 now hollow, were originally filled in some way, 

 perhaps with enamel.'* 



On the south side of the nave are two doorways 

 opening to the cloister and forming the eastern 

 and western processional doors. The first is in 

 the easternmost bay of the aisle and has a semi- 

 circular stilted arch of two orders on the inside, of 

 the end of the first building period ; both orders 

 are moulded with a 

 roll between two 

 hollows, the inner 

 continuous and the 

 outer on single jamb 

 shafts with volute 

 capitals. The ex- 

 ternal face is of later 

 date, probably of the 

 time of Pudsey, and 

 has an unstilted 

 semicircular arch of 

 four orders, the inner- 

 most continuous, the 

 others supported on 

 shafts with carved 

 capitals and moulded 

 bases on high plinths. 

 All four orders are 

 richly moulded, the 

 innermost with 

 lozenges, the second 

 with enriched billets, 

 the third with a 

 deeply hollowed 

 spiral pattern, while 

 the outer order, now 

 much broken, appears 

 to have consisted of 

 a species of cheveron. 



The other doorway 

 is in the sixth bay 

 doorway, and has 



Durham Cathedral: 12th-century Ring or 

 Knocker on North Door 



opposite the great north 

 a semicircular arch of 

 three orders, the inner supported on single 

 shafts, the two outer on coupled shafts, all with 

 cushion capitals. The two inner orders are 

 decorated with cheveron and the outer with a 

 floriated ornament set with medallions, the 

 lower four on each side containing alternately 

 conventional leaves and grotesque animals, and 

 the three middle ones each a leaf. The shafts 

 are all elaborately ornamented, the two outer 

 ones on each side with a lozenge pattern of 

 parallel ridges and grooves, and the inner one 

 with a pattern of the same type but different in 

 character, the space in the centre of each lozenge 



'* ' The flanges by which something representing 

 eyes were fixed still remain.' Boyle, op. cit. 261. The 

 diameter of the head, from tip to tip of the ray-like 

 mane, is 22 in. 



being occupied by four leaves. The capitals 

 are covered with a pattern of grotesque animals 

 and foliage." On the external face the arch is 

 of three cheveroned orders supported on shafts 

 with lozenge ornament ; the ornament on this 

 side of the doorway is much decayed. The 

 door itself retains its scroll hinges and is covered 

 with elaborate contemporary ironwork of beauti- 

 ful design. 



This doorway and the great north doorway 

 opposite appear to 

 be as late as the time 

 of Bishop Geoffrey 

 Rufus (1133-40), or 

 even later, the re- 

 semblance between 

 certain features in the 

 sculpture and that 

 on the doorway of the 

 Chapter House and 

 on the corbels which 

 once supported its 

 eastern vaulting ribs 

 being very marked.'* 

 In the fifth bay of 

 the south aisle a door- 

 way, now blocked, 

 was at a later time 

 cut through the wall 

 to the enclosed north 

 alley of the cloister. 



In the floor of the 

 nave between the 

 great piers immedi- 

 ately west of the 

 north and south 

 doorways is the ' row 

 of blue marble ' de- 

 scribed in Rites,'" 

 forming a cross of 

 two short arms at 

 of which no woman was 



the centre, eastward 

 allowed to pass. 



Of the various FITTINGS AND FURNISH- 

 INGS OF THE NAFE few traces remain. 

 The rood screen, described in Rites as ' a high 



'^ GreenweU, op. cit. 51. 



'* Ibid. The Chapter House was finished by 

 Geoffrey Rufus. Prof. Hamilton Thompson would 

 give the date of the north doorway, that opposite to 

 it and the west doorway as about 1160, and the 

 doorway to the eastern alley of the cloister he 

 considers contemporary with the completion of the 

 Gahlee (c. 1 1 75). 



" ' There is betwixt the pillar of the north syde . . . 

 and the piller that standith over against yt of the south 

 syde, from the one of them to the other, a rowe of 

 blewe marble, and in the mydest of the said rowe ther 

 is a cross of blewe marble, in token that all women 

 that came to here di\Tne service should not be suf- 

 fered to come above the said cross.' Rites, 35- 



117 



