An architectural handbook of Glastonbury Abbey : with a historical chronicle of the building / by Frederick Bligh Bond.

  • Frederick Bligh Bond
Date:
1920
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An architectural handbook of Glastonbury Abbey : with a historical chronicle of the building / by Frederick Bligh Bond. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    68/128 (page 52)
    from time immemorial and what more easy, or more natural, than to throw down the barrier which parted the galilee from the chapel and let it be absorbed ? But it is quite clear that these galilees were not originally contrived as lady chapels, and their conversion to this use would be nothing more than a local expedient. To return now to the architectural features of the nave and transepts, we observe that everywhere an enrichment is employed of the “ chevron ” or “ zigzag ” type, and in this respect the building is unlike Wells, but follows another influence—that of a school under which the Cathedral of Saint David’s was erected. This work was started in the same year that Reginald began his nave at Wells, and was therefore also standing as a model for Glastonbury. It exhibits in similar variety almost the identical patterns we find at Glastonbury, though less boldly and effectively proportioned. This blending of traditions is very striking, and seems without doubt intentional, and designed by the builders to symbolise that union and reconciliation of different races and their churches for which Glastonbury stood. Saint David’s, representing the old native church, contributes an architectural element which is brought into beautiful harmony with the work of the English school, as typified by Wells, and underlying these we seem to see the thought and stimulating power of Hugh, the Burgundian, soon to be the greatest of English cathedral builders. The part of the church first to be completed was the central area, as we have seen in the foregoing Chronicle.” Evidence of its greater antiquity seems presented in the character of some of the chevron work in the transepts. This is specially in evidence in the small arch to the south of the great choir opening where the ornament is of a quite simple Romanesque or Anglo-Norman Type. [Compare this with the later variety in the corresponding position on the north.] This simpler chevron is also visible in the return arches just inside the choir, leading into the side chapels. It appears quite reasonable to suppose that the debris of Herlewin’s church may have yielded a quantity of quite uninjured masonry enrichments, and that these were used up as far as they would serve by the builders of the new church,