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Updated: May 9, 2025
As the chink of the censer-chains had sounded in the stillness, with one consent the enormous crowd had fallen on its knees, and so remained, as the smoke curled up from the hands of the rebel figure who held the thurible. Then the organ had begun to blow, and from the huge massed chorus in the transepts had rolled out the anthem, broken by one passionate cry, from some mad Catholic.
I had often been in the cathedral before indeed, we attended the service daily, and I had been appalled, rather than astonished, by what I saw and heard: the unintelligible service the irreverent gabble of the choristers and readers the scanty congregation the meagre portion of the vast building which seemed to be turned to any use: but never more than that evening, did I feel the desolateness, the doleful inutility, of that vast desert nave, with its aisles and transepts built for some purpose or other now extinct.
The three gargoyles below have been renewed, and none of the gargoyles on choir or transepts are earlier, perhaps, than the Decorated period. =The Choir. North Side.= Here the three westernmost bays of the aisle and clearstorey respectively are Archbishop Roger's work.
There is, to be sure, no poverty of style; but there is an air of stability and firmness of purpose on the part of its builders, rather than any attempt to either launch off into something new or untried, or even to consistently remain in an old groove. As a fact, it is not a very grand building. Its choir is small, and its transepts short.
Still, perhaps the most ingeniously refined, the most exquisite idea is that which occurred to the architects of Saint Maclou at Rouen, of Notre Dame at Dijon, and of the Cathedral at Laon, for example, who built rising from the centre of the transepts that is above the very spot where, on the Cross, the breast of Christ would lie, a lantern higher than the rest of the roof, often finishing outside in a tall and slender spire, starting as it were from the Heart of Christ to leap with one spring to the Father, to soar as if shot up from the bow of the vaulting in a sharp dart to reach the sky.
Yet, even on the worst days, he was busy at his place in the piazza, where the cathedral, which he had been building for three years, was nearing completion. The greatest energy at that moment was being expended on the dome, which rose proudly over the crossing of the nave and transepts.
Then walk up to the Barrier near the Transepts, where sit again, in order to observe the Choir and Transepts with the staircase which leads to the raised Ambulatory. Observe that the transepts are simple. The ugly stained glass in the windows of their clerestory contains illustrations of the reign of Louis Philippe, with extremely unpicturesque costumes of the period.
Like most cathedrals, Wells has been the composition of many hands, and is carried out in many different styles. Roughly, the work may be classified as follows: Norm. perhaps even Pre-Norm. font; Trans. Norm. N. porch, nave and transepts: E.E. W. front; Dec. lady chapel and chapter-house, central tower and choir; Perp.
The remains in the crypt show that there were two eastern apses to these transepts close to the central tower, and Professor Willis deduces from the position of these apses that they left no room for eastern aisles. There is no instance in existence of a transept having western without eastern aisles. One may therefore conclude that aisles were entirely wanting.
For the altar Scott himself designed its new reredos, and the greater part of the eastern arm was floored by him with encaustic tiles, though some would have preferred a pavement less showy and glittering in effect. The designs of most of these tiles were taken from a few old ones still to be seen in the choir transepts.
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