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THE CIVIL ENGINEER AND ARCHITECTS JOURNAL. 



[November, 



the screw should be inadvertently reduced more than necessary, figures are 

 stamped on the sides of the set nut E, to indicate when the thread is full. 



HEREFORD CATHEDRAL. 



Report on Ihe present stale of the Catliedral at Hereford, and on the causes 

 which have led to it. By Robert Willis, M.A., F.R.S., of Caius College, 

 Cambridge, and Jacksouian Professor of that University. 



(IJ'ith Two Enyravinrjs, Plates XIV and XV.) 



Every part of the building exhibits settlements and consequent distortions 

 to a much greater degree than is generally the case with buildings of the 

 same age. Thus, the eastern gable of the choir inclines considerably to the 

 east, and the south wall of the Lady Chapel to the south ; the walls of the 

 north transept incline northwards and outwards in all directions, and the 

 buttresses of its western wall are also thrust northwards. The north porch, 

 commonly attributed to Bishop Booth, is also considerably inclined to the 

 nortli, and the piers of the nave to the west; in short there is scarcely a 

 vertical wall or pier in the whole building, with the exception perhaps of the 

 Audley Chapel. 



When these several settlements are carefully examined, they appear to be 

 of such a nature as would arise more from compression of the ground or 

 oundation upon which they stand, than from weakness of the walls them- 

 selves, for these walls and piers are not bent into a convex form, as they 

 ■would be if they had given way from constructive weakness, but are thrust 

 bodily over, sinking into the ground on the yielding side. This may, for 

 example, be observed in the piers of the nave, near the great tower, both on 

 the north and south sides. 



The greater part of these settlements however, cau be shown to be of 

 great antiquity, having as might be expected, taken place very soon after the 

 building was finished, and there is no fear of their going any further, except 

 in those cases in which the original settlements may have so weakened the 

 walls, by fracturing and displacing their materials as to allow them to sink 

 under their own weight or that of the subsequent additions. 



For the purpose of examining the nature of the foundations, excavations 

 have been made by Mr. Cottingham, at the bases of the piers on the south 

 side of the nave, aud about that of the northern piers of the tower. From 

 these, as well as from an excavation in the centre of the nave, it appears 

 that at a depth of about seven feet below the present pavement, there is a 

 firm bed of gravel, wliich, from deeper sinkings in the neighbourhood of the 

 Cathedral, is ascertained to extend to a great depth, forming what must be 

 considered to be an unexceptionable foundation ; and since the new work of 

 ilr. Wyatt, as well as the Audley chapel, remains perfectly upright, it is thus 

 shown that the ground when properly treated admits of a solid bearing. 

 Again, as the settlements might have been supposed to have arisen from 

 springs of water immediately under the building, search and inquiry has 

 been directed to this point without discovering any. Immediately upon the 

 surface of the bed of gravel, a wall fh, k, Fig. ij about 5 ft. high, is placed. 

 The stones of which it is built are rough from the quarry and are in seven 

 courses ; they are from 15 to 18 inches long at the lower part, and rather less 

 at tlie upper, and the breadth of the wall is about 4 ft. greater than the 

 bases of the piers which stand upon it ; two of these walls appear to ex- 

 tend from one end of the Cathedral to the other — from west to east — the 

 one receiving the northern and the other the southern range of piers as well 

 as the piers of the central tower. The squared masonry of the bases of the 

 piers fP, E, G, &c.) rests upon the upper surface of these walls. Of course 

 the rough structure of the walls prevents the detection of any settlement or 

 displacement ; but I am of opinion that it is rather this basement wall, than 

 the gravel below, which has given way, and allowed the piers to sink down 

 and lean over as they do at present. 



The walls of the Audley Chapel are, as already stated, perfectly upright, 

 but the south wall of the Lady Chapel, against which it is erected, and into 

 -which its masonry is bonded, declines very considerably to the south; 

 plainly, therefore, this settlement must have existed before the Audley 

 Chapel was erected, and cannot have increased since the year 1500 ; on the 

 other hand, the eastern gable of the Lady Chapel is in a state of ruinous 

 disintegration, and requu-es immediate repair to save it from the fate of the 

 west end of the Cathedral. The inclination of the walls and buttresses of 

 the north transept, and of Booth's Torch, are original settlements, and 

 nothing is to be apprehended from them or from that of the eastern gable 

 of the choir, the entire ponderous Korman wall of which, has evidently 



gone to the east, and possibly its upper gable may have been reduced to 

 such a ruinous condition as to have justified the rebuilding of it by Mr, 

 Wyatt. 



But my attention has been more particularly du-ected to the state of the 

 tower, and to make the result of my observations intelligible, it will be 

 necessary to say somewhat of the history of its erection. 



It is clear that the piers and the four great arches that rest upon them are 

 of Norman work, and that at some subsequent period, the present tower, 

 which rises above the roofs, was added. Whether a Norman tower was ever 

 carried above the roof, and consequently taken down to make way for the 

 present erection, is uncertain; I am inclined to think not. The line of de- 

 marcation between the Norman wall and that of the added tower is easily 

 traced. The upper limit of the Norman work is marked by a string course, 

 (A, B, Figs. 2, 3, 4, 5,) ornamented with a double row of little arch-heads, aud 

 the additional work commences just above this, in a manner that will be 

 described below. The erection of this tower is not recorded, but from the 

 style of its ornaments, may be fixed at the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century. The date usually assigned to it is a century earlier— it being 

 supposed the work of Bishop de Braos ; but this date, repeated by every 

 successive historian, merely rests on a passage of Godwin, who in his bio- 

 graphy of this Bishop,* says, " That his effigy has a model of a tower in 

 its hand, whence he conjectures that he must have been the builder of the 

 central tower." This date is thus founded upon no document, and being 

 contradicted by the now well-understood architectural style of the tower, 

 may be dismissed as possessing no authority. It is much to be regretted 

 that tliB period of erection of no one part of this Cathedral has been re- 

 corded, with the exception of its first foundation. It is established, how- 

 ever, that Bishop Cautilupe died in 1282, and was buried in the Lady Chapel, 

 that his reputed sanctity and the miracles which were said to have been 

 wrought at his tomb, brought considerable sums to the church, and that 

 his body was removed to the north transept in 1287; also that he was 

 canonized in 1307. 



The style of the north transept agrees with the supposition that it was 

 erected for the reception of the shrine of Cantilupe, between his death and 

 the translation of his body ; and the superior magnificence of the design 

 bespeaks the increase of riches and consequence which this event had 

 brought to the Cathedral. To the same source and the same circum- 

 stances may be attributed the new tower, of which, if we place the date 

 at about 1300, or a little later, it will appear to have been undertakea 

 immediately after the completion of the north transept, and probably from 

 the funds which still arose from the same profitable source. And this may- 

 account for the omission of any recorded founder or benefactor in con- 

 nexion with either the work of the north transept or of this tower ; for it 

 may be generally observed, with respect to the buildings of the middle 

 ages, that when they were carried on by their monasteries, no record is 

 preserved of the work, but only when some considerable portion of it, as 

 a tower, a transept, or the vaulting of an aisle, was undertaken at the 

 expense of an individual. Thus it happens in the present instance, that 

 the building of the Lady Chapel and its Testil)ule, the clerestory and vault 

 of the choir and nave, all of them works of the twelfth and thirteenth 

 centuries, are not recorded. To be sure Leiand has recorded of Bishop de 

 Vere, who died in 1109, that he constructed many remarkable edifices (on 

 the authority of his epitaph), and we may assign some of these works to him 

 if we please. 



To return, however, to the tower ; it is evident that at the time of the 

 addition of the present tower, the piers and the four great Norman arches, 

 upon which it was placed, were in a state of great dislocation and settlement. 

 If the south-east pier (H, fig. 3,) be examined in connexion with the east 

 Norman wall, E, F, G, of the south transept, it will be seen that the masonry 

 of the latter wall near this pier has been dragged downwards by the settle- 

 ment of the pier. This is very visible on the inside of the building above the 

 vault, at E K, as weU as on the outside of the clerestory. It is also shown 

 by the bending downwards of the string mouldings in the interior of this 

 transept, at F, and also by the difference of level of the opposite impost 

 mouldings of the small Norman arch, at G, which opens between this south 

 transept and the south aisle of the choir ; for we may assume that all these 

 things, namely, the courses of the masonry, the string mouldings, and the 

 two imposts of the arch, were originally respectively level. But when the 

 respective downward dislocations of these three things are carefully measured, 

 they are found to be exactly the same, namely, 34 inches ; and as they are 

 situated at different altitudes, we may concl ude that this pier has sunk bodily 



> Ue PrKSulibu'-, 1616, p. 536. 



