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ST. ASAPH'S CATHEDRAL.

(Read at Ruthin.)

The Cathedral Church of St. Asaph is the smallest in the whole range of English and Welsh episcopal churches; it is indeed, I imagine, the smallest in the whole of Great Britain. Yet, if we consider it apart from the unfair comparisons which its technical rank at first suggests, it will be found to contain several points of some architectural value. Compared, not only with the great English cathedrals, but even with St. David's and Llandaff, Brecon and Llanthony, it at once sinks into insignificance; but, regarded as an ordinary parish church, it would at once be recognized as presenting a remarkable majesty of outline, on which, far more than on any special point of detail, its claim to attention is founded.

GENERAL CHARACTER.— The church is cruciform, with a central tower, whereby, although smaller, it approaches nearer to the usual type of a cathedral than Bangor, which has, at present at least, its only tower at the west end. But in no other respect does it exhibit any

of the characteristics of a minster, less so by far than Brecon, and, I should be inclined to say, less so even than Llanbadarn. The remarkable, almost excessive, state of neatness which at present distinguishes it, has something to do with this; but the difference lies deeper in the original architecture. It is essentially a church of the Llanbadarn and Brecon type, with the same grand simplicity of outline, and especially the same enormous massiveness of the central tower. With the arrangements actually employed, the

presence of aisles makes St. Asaph look more, instead of less, parochial than Llanbadarn.

Leaving then quite aside all comparisons with churches of the first or even the second order, with its neighbours

1 St. German's in the Isle of Man is smaller, and so I believe are some in Ireland, but certainly none in England or Wales, nor I imagine in Scotland.

at Chester no less than with Ely and Winchester, the cathedral of St. Asaph, viewed as a large and rather plain cruciform parish church, is very far from being devoid of merit. As seen from the west, the high roofs of the nave and transepts joining against the massive tower, produce an excellent outline, and the proportions are for the most part very good. The modern choir is certainly an eyesore, and there is a general air of over-trimness, which offends the antiquarian eye; but, to judge from my own experience, when this feeling, and that of involuntary disappointment at a cathedral church being so small and plain, has once been got over, the result of an examination of the building is decidedly one of satisfaction. It is vastly inferior to Brecon Priory in every respect, but it shares in a great degree its characteristics of bulk and simplicity. A few bold and simple members form the system of composition throughout, both in general design and in detail.

As neither the architecture nor the history of this cathedral is very complicated, there is no need of any formal division, but I shall be able to carry on the description and the history together. The few dates preserved by Browne Willis, compared with the existing appearances of the building, will enable me to do this

with ease.

The cathedral consists of a nave and aisles of five bays, transepts and choir, without any aisles or chapels of any kind attached. The choir is modern, but the old choir was also without aisles, though it had attached to its north side a chapter-house in a position much more usual for a sacristy. It may be remembered that both Brecon and Llanthony are without regular aisles to the choir ; but it is perhaps in this part more than any other that we feel the wide difference between their arrangements and those of St. Asaph.

The choir of the latter is most conspicuously felt to be, and always must have been, identical with the chancel of a good sized parish church. To the great massiveness and consequent majestic effect of the tower I have already called attention. The other

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points most worthy of notice in a first hasty sketch are the clerestory of foliated squares, now existing only on the south side of the nave, and the west front, which, although a good deal disfigured by the poorly restored pinnacles, is a fair specimen of a simple unadorned front, the proportion and composition being both of a very respectable order. In this respect St. Asaph excels Brecon, which, it may be remembered, has nothing which can be called a west front at all. St. Asaph again, with its gables of the ordinary kind, has, as an ecclesiastical building, an advantage over Brecon and Abergavenny, where a military parapet is carried in front of the gables.

The ORIGINAL CHURCH.—The present cathedral was commenced in the thirteenth century, and its building must have extended over the greater portion of the fourteenth. The former structure, or at least the greater portion of it, was burnt to the ground in 1282, in the Welsh wars of Edward I., during the time of Bishop Anian the Second. This prelate then contemplated removing the see to Rhuddlan, a design which must have been soon relinquished, as the church of St. Asaph began to be rebuilt in 1284.3 Of the former choir a tolerable idea may be formed from Browne Willis' view, and a still better from a drawing preserved in the Palace, for a sight of which I am indebted to the kindness of the Bishop. Its south side was of three bays, the two easternmost of which contained each a couplet of lancets, and the westernmost an equal triplet. They appear to have been excellent specimens of Early English work, of very good proportions, and furnished with elegant banded shafts. Now although Welsh architecture is commonly a little less advanced than English, of which we have seen such notable instances at St. David's, yet this choir appears too unmistakeable an example of the distinctive Lancet style to be regarded as a part of the reparation under Bishop Anian; it is impossible to doubt the fact that the destruction of 1282 was, as is often found to be

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They succeeded earlier ones.
ARCH, CAMB., NEW SERIES, VOL. V.

3 Browne Willis, p. 48.

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the case on such occasions, less complete than the words in which it is described would, at first sight, have led us to imagine. The walls at least of the choir must have remained in a state capable of reparation, destruction by fire not necessarily implying more than the loss of the roof and furniture.

The choir then, which existed till the latter part of the last century, was the most ancient portion of the cathedral, and must have been a vestige of the church which preceded the conflagration of 1282. It would be a most interesting question, had we any data to resolve it, whether this choir presented any of the characteristics of the native Welsh style, such as is seen at Llanbadarn, Llanaber, Cymmer, and Valle Crucis, and which is so easily distinguished alike from the common Early English of Brecon and from the Somersetshire style of St. David's, Llanthony, and Llandaff. We should expect à priori that such would be the case, but the drawing which forms our chief authority is not on a scale sufficiently large to settle the point.

The chapter-house was probably contemporary, but we only know its character from Browne Willis' account.* It had a vaulted roof and a room over it. Its dimensions were sixteen feet by nineteen. It was not rebuilt in any form, the south transept now serving as both chapterhouse and library.

DECORATED RECONSTRUCTION.—The oldest portion now remaining consists of the aisles of the nave, which we cannot doubt were commenced by Anian in 1284. Both windows and doorways have been tampered with in more recent times, but it is easy to see, by comparing them with the old drawings, that they fairly represent the general effect of their predecessors. The windows are early Geometrical, of two lights, with foliated circles in the head, and the doorways are of the same character, with shafts and capitals.

Page 7. 5 That this was the case, that the aisles therefore were the work of Anian, and the former choir most probably earlier than his time, was

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Bishop Anian died in 1293, and the work of rebuilding the cathedral must have been actively continued under his successors Llwelyn de Bromfield (1292-1313) and Dafydd ap Bleddyn, who was consecrated in 1314, and died between 1346 and 1352. Browne Willis mentions the former as making various “orders for singing and other services of the church,” and as bequeathing “ much goods and ornaments to his church, canons, and chaplains.” Bishop Dafydd “obtained a confirmation of the impropriation of the church of Nantelyn to the vicarschoral of his church, for saying mass in St. Mary's Chapel, which,” he adds, “ as I judge, was built in his time.' This St. Mary's Chapel, as appears from Browne Willis' ground-plan, was no other than the south transept, there being no architectural Lady Chapel. The two transepts, the nave, and the lantern-arches are clearly

the conclusion to which I was led by the appearance of the building, compared with the dates preserved by Browne Willis, and the drawings of the church in its former state. But it will be observed that my argument rests solely on the hypothesis that these aisle windows (dating 1830 on the north and 1844 on the south side) fairly represent the general character of their predecessors, however' much tampered with in detail. This was the conclusion at which I arrived on an inspection of the view in Browne Willis and that preserved in the palace. But since my last visit to St. Asaph, I have been informed by Mr. Scott, who visited the cathedral while the repairs were going on, that his impression is that the former windows in the aisles were of a later character, more resembling those in the west front, and that the present ones are as mere innovations in the main lines of their tracery as in their minuter details. If this be the case, we must conceive the aisles to be a part of the same work of which the south transept was the completion, and we are almost irresistibly led to the conclusion that the Early English choir was the work of Anian. But as Mr. Scott was not positive on the point, and had no drawings or notes of the former windows, I deemed it my duty to make every possible inquiry as to their character. I have to thank the Rev. W. H. Owen, and Thomas Jones, Esq., of Chester, for taking a good deal of trouble on my behalf, and to the latter gentleman for several dates of the modern repairs; but it seems passing strange that, as yet, I have not been able to obtain any positive information as to the main question. I must therefore be content to leave my readers with two hypotheses, the one to be ultimately adopted depending on any information which may turn up as to the former windows in the aisles.

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