US 



THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[April, 



idea to start from. Yet what does the history of architecture — 

 or, indeed, of all art, present, but a series and continued course of 

 innovation? How should we have got Gothic at all, without innova- 

 tion ; or having been introduced, how could it have advanced beyond 

 its first stages ? Architecture does not indeed admit of fashions, if 

 by fashions are meant fresh patterns every month for dandies of both 

 sexes. But change, growth, and further development, there may 

 and must be ; for the very principle of art prevents architecture from 

 continuing stationary. If it cannut advance, it must retrograde, and 

 become entirely mechanical, without aught worthy the name of de- 

 sign. It is owing to our not striving to get forward at all, but con- 

 fining ourselves to repetitions of the same forms and ideas over and 

 over again, that we at length suddenly abandon them altogether, sa- 

 tiated with the unvarying sameness of a style we have stereotyped, 

 and desparing of obtaining variety, except by going to one entirely 

 different. Thus Elizabethan is taken up by way of change from Gre- 

 cian, because no one knows how to produce anv noveltv in Grecian 

 itself. 



VII. An architectural book, I am informed, has just appeared, 

 edited by Lady Mary Fox: but "edited" has of late become such an 

 equivocal term, that its meaning in this instance is exceedingly 

 doubtful. No one ever heard before that Lady Mary had made archi- 

 tecture her study ; and even were she ever so well qualified for the 

 task, it is strange that, merely for the sake of seeing her name so in- 

 troduced upon a title-page, a lady should condescend to accept the 

 job of superintending the printing of a book. Lady Mary, however, 

 it seems, is not above even crying " stinking fish !" for it is said in the 

 preface that the work, which it seems is partly from the German, is 

 incorrectly translated ! If such be the case, it was then surely the 

 duty of her editorial ladyship to revise and correct those portions 

 instead of knowingly sending forth to the public what she was aware 

 was very inadequately executed. At any rate there was no occasion 

 to tell the world how utterly unable she was to get through the job 

 she had undertaken, and to coufess her own incompetence with a de- 

 gree of ingenuousness that amounts to stupidity. 



OBSERVATIONS ON RIPON CATHEDRAL. 



Read at the Royal Institute of British Architects. By Mr. Morris. 



" E.lreile with powere untitle the north went 

 Alle the touu of Kipon he wasted and brent" 



Peter Langtoft. 



In the seventh century au animated controversv divided the pole- 

 mics of the Anglo-Saxon church concerning the time of celebratino- 

 Easter. The Northumbrians observing the Irish tradition, kept the 

 iestival upon the Sunday that fell between the 11th and 20th davs of 

 the Paschal moon, while in most parts of the country the Roman 

 practice was followed. Thus Bede tells us that two Easters were 

 sometimes observed in one year, and the Northumbrian king and his 

 queen being divided in opinion, it would happen that when' the king 

 having completed his Lenten fast was celebrating Easter, the queen 

 still fasting was spending Palm Sunday. 



Wilfred, an ecclesiastic, had at the age of 20 been sent to Rome 

 under the auspices of queen Elfleda, for the purpose of acquiring at 

 the papal see, the best information on the subject of dispute, and on his 

 return is said to have taken a distinguished part at the Synod of 

 r ., v? e d ln , 6 ^ 4 ; and llis success was Allowed by his appointment 

 to the Episcopal Chair of York, from which he was afterwards twice 

 ejected, on the last occasion being absent for 10 years, and it would 

 seem that he visited Rome in both intervals, and found a sure if not 

 a powerful ally in the pope. 



In the year 661 Alchfrid, king of Deira, bestowed upon Eata 

 Abbot of Melrose and Lindisfarne certain lands at Ripon, where, al- 

 lured by the beauty of its situation he built a monastery. But soon 

 alter its erection the monks, (among whom was St. Cuthbert,) on ac- 

 count ot their nonconformance to the Catholic observance of Easter, 

 were expe led the monastery by Alchfrid, who then conferred it, en- 

 dowed with 30 hides of laud, upon Wilfred, who, notwithstanding 

 his subsequent elevation, retained it during his life. King Athelstan 

 gave it the privilege of sanctuary, which extended a mile round the 



church, so that not only the church but the whole town was a 

 place of refuge to all who fled to it. One (if not more) of the crosses 

 marking the bounds of sanctuary yet remains. 



It would have been strange, indeed, had a prelate, endowed with 

 Wilfred's mental and physical energy, made repeated and protracted 

 sojourns in the " Eternal city,'' without acquiring some regard for its 

 architectural treasures and a desire to emulate them on his native 

 soil. That he was thus affected, we have the most satisfactory evi- 

 dence; and ecclesiastical architecture in this country was more in- 

 debted to him than to any other person of that age. Notices of his 

 works are found in his biographer Heddins, Richard of Hexham, 

 William of Malmesbury, and other ancient writers, of which a sum- 

 mary sufficient for our present purpose will be found in Britton's York 

 Cathedral and the Chronological Volume. From these we learn that 

 he erected in Ripon a church of hewn stone supported with various 

 columns aud porticos, and completed it from its foundation to the 

 summit. 



" The church of St. Andrew at Hexham he built, laying the founda- 

 tions deep in the earth with great care, forming crypts and subter- 

 ranean oratories, and winding passages. The walls, extending to a 

 great length, and raised to a great height, were divided into three 

 distinct stories, supported by polished columns, some square, aud 

 others of various foru-.s. The walls and likewise the capitals of the 

 columns by which they were supported, and the arch of the sanctuary, 

 were decorated with histories and images and different figures, carved 

 in relief on stone, and painted with colours, displaying a pleasing va- 

 riety and wonderful beauty. The body of the church was likewise 

 surrounded on all sides by ^entices and porticos, which, with the 

 most wonderful artifice, were divided above and below by walls and 

 winding stairs. Within these winding passages and over them were 

 stairs and galleries of stone, and various methods for ascending and 

 descending, so ingeniously contrived, that a vast multitude of persons 

 might be there and pass round the church without being visible to any 

 one in the nave below. Many oratories also, most retired and beau- 

 tiful, were, with the utmost care and diligence, erected in the porti- 

 cos- both above and below, and in them were placed altars in honour 

 of the blessed mother of God, the Virgin Mary, St. Michael the Arch- 

 angel, St. John the Baptist, and the Holy Apostles, martyrs, confessors, 

 and virgins, with all becoming and proper furniture belonging to 

 them." 



I have transcribed this passage relative to the church at Hexham, as 

 its circumstantial character can hardly fail to be interesting; audit 

 illustrates in a very decided manner the highly artificial models co- 

 pied by the architect. Indeed, I question whether old St. Paul's, 

 Salisbury, Westminster or Durham, in the very zenith of their mag- 

 nificence, could have furnished more glowing images to the pictoral 

 imagination of the good old chronicler, Richard the Prior, who wrote 

 towards the end of the 12th century, when the church after 500 

 years, though bowed and stricken with age, retained like a patriarch, 

 the indelible traces of former glory. 



Wilfred is said to have erected two other churches at Hexham, be- 

 sides several in other parts of England ; and Bentham supposes that 

 he superintended the erection of the church and monastery of Ely. 

 Indeed, he appears to have been equally celebrated for his theological 

 and architectural acquirements, being eminent for his knowledge and 

 skill in the science of architecture, and was himself the principal di- 

 rector of all those works in concert with the excellent masters whom 

 the hopes of preferment had invited from Rome and other places, to 

 execute the plans which he had formed. 



William of Malmesbury also notices the beauty of the pavements; 

 and there is little doubt that where so much emulation existed, an at- 

 tempt to imitate the mosaics of Rome would be made. In the small, 

 half ruinated, hospital chapel of St. Mary Magdalen at Ripon, is a 

 venerable relic of some such effort, with tesseras about half an inch 

 square; and on the site of the high altar at Fountains' Abbey, a 

 pavement remains which has glazed tiles of various forms and colours 

 to suit the geometrical figures of the design, which exhibits great 

 elegance and variety; ana I think this kind of paving maybe con- 

 sidered to have intervened between the former and the inlaid or en- 

 caustic tiles met with at Romsey, Salisbury, Winchester, aud many 

 other places, an attempt to revive which method has lately been made 

 with some success, and from the present state of the manufactures in 

 pottery, the most beautiful productions may be expected. At Win- 

 chester are to be seen some examples of embossed tiles, or with the 

 ornaments raised from the surface or ground. 



In Bishop Wilfred's time then we find the church and monastery 

 settled on a permanent footing — his labours and benefactions endeared 

 him to the inhabitants, and the demonstration of rapturous and enthu- 

 siastic affection which marked his return from exile, is still commemo- 

 rated by the annual observance of a mimic pageant. The church, 



