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N.W. of West Pennard Station, lies in pretty country. Its church is spacious, and contains much of interest. Architecturally it belongs to various periods. The S. door is Norm., the porch later. The columns and arches which separate the nave from the aisle are late Norm. or Trans.; the roof was raised at a later date, and a Perp. clerestory was inserted.
The floors of the nave and its aisles are on one level; but till recently the floors of the aisles were a few inches lower, and this is believed to have been the original arrangement. The clerestory range has three arches, the central being the highest. Ltd. The western half of the #ceiling# was painted by Mr. Styleman le Strange, of Hunstanton Hall, in Norfolk, between 1858 and 1861.
None of these windows now remain entire, though the west window has been put together out of fragments of the ancient glass. The latter-day pilgrims will do well to look as little as possible at the hideous glass which the Philistinism of modern piety has inserted, during the last half-century, in the windows of the clerestory and the nave.
There are two small windows in the west wall to light the wall passage to the clerestory, which is reached by a gallery running across the base of the north window. In the north wall, behind the back of the pews, is a thirteenth-century recess. From this transept access is gained to the circular staircase leading downward to the crypt and upward to the small chamber above the eastern chapels.
They are similar in general character to those at Winchester, which were built by Abbot Simeon's brother. The transepts at Winchester were ready for consecration in 1093, and this was seven years before Simeon came to Ely. The triforium is probably only in part Simeon's work; and the clerestory was almost certainly added by his successor.
At the time of the erection of the Perpendicular clerestory to the nave, the northern gable turret was rebuilt in the curiously plain, octagonal, flat-topped form, which the oldest engravings of the front illustrate.
These transepts were finished a little later, when the nave was begun and finished, and the north porch built in the thirteenth century. The clerestory of the nave dates from the first half of the fourteenth century, and so does the great western window.
A splendid piece of sculpture Eleanor, wife of Edward given Elizabeth by another royal suitor, who had sought to be her consort through many years, caught the warm bath of gold and crimson from the clerestory and seemed alive and breathing. Against the pedestal the Queen had placed her visitor, the red cushions making vivid contrast to her white gown and black hair.
The great cathedral towered above him, and from where he sat the Tenor caught a beautiful glimpse of it anglewise, of the south transept and tower and spire; the rich perpendicular windows of the clerestory, the bold span of the flying buttresses rising out of the plain but solid Norman base, every detail of which he knew and appreciated.
It was a strangely calm morning; through the unstained windows of the clerestory the sun sloped quivering ladders of golden light.
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