Bells Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle | Page 8

of heads and mouldings which interferes with the upper window mouldings. The transept compartments differ from those of the nave by the addition of a flat buttress between each, which consequently breaks the continuity of the corbel table.
As the side of the nave was covered by the conventual buildings it was of plainer character than the north, and had no buttresses between the windows.
The clerestory is exactly the same as on the north.
The foundations of the old west wall are behind one of the prebendary's houses to the west of the nave.
The west end, as it stands at present, was restored by Mr. Christian.
A local sandstone was used in the construction of the building: grey, or white in the Norman portion, and red in the other parts. This red sandstone is not so good for exterior as for interior work, because it is liable to perish by the action of the weather.
[Illustration: THE NAVE, SOUTH SIDE. G.W. Wilson & Co., Photo.]
CHAPTER III
THE INTERIOR
The cathedral now consists of part of the original nave (the two eastern bays only) with aisles; and north and south transepts without aisles, but with a chapel on the east side of the south transept; the central tower; and the choir with north and south aisles and ambulatory or retro-choir.
The #Nave.#--Entering by the modern doorway on the north, we are at once in the fragmentary nave, of Early Norman work. Its present length is about 38 feet and width about 60 feet. In 1645 the Scots destroyed about 100 feet of the nave, and it has never been rebuilt. This mutilation has had a serious effect upon the proportions of the building, and induces a feeling of want of balance. The open timber roof, raised to the original height, was substituted at the restoration for a flat ceiling which had been put up at a previous "embellishment" of the cathedral. Bishop Walkelin made use of similar roofs in Winchester Cathedral (1070-1097).
The triforium (1140-50) has in each compartment a semi-circular arch entirely without ornament.
The clerestory consists of three arches supported by columns with carved capitals; the centre arch, which is larger than the other, is lighted at the back by a round-headed window.
We may say that the nave is
"propped With pillars of prodigious girth."
They are massive circular columns nearly six feet in diameter, and support semi-circular arches. The capitals of those on the south side are carved with leaf ornament; the rest are plain. Against the wall between each arch is a semi-circular engaged shaft reaching to the base of the triforium. The arches near the tower have been partly crushed owing to the shifting of the tower piers caused by faulty foundations. About 1870 the west end of the nave was restored by Mr. Christian. The window is filled with glass, in memory of the Rev. C. Vernon Harcourt, canon and prebendary of Carlisle (d. 1870).
One of the south aisle windows--the "Soldiers'" window--is in memory of men and officers of the 34th (or Cumberland) Regiment, who fell in the Crimea, and in India during the mutiny. Three Old Testament warriors appear in stained glass--Joshua, Jerubbaal ("who is Gideon"), and Judas Maccabeus. The battle-torn fragmentary regimental colours hang from the arch opposite. Just beneath this window a doorway (now blocked up) formerly led from the cloisters into the nave.
Up to the year 1870 the nave was used as a parish church. The cathedral from its beginning as the priory church, in accordance with a very common practice of the Augustinian body, contained two churches belonging to two separate bodies quite independent of each other.
The choir and transepts formed the priory church, in the possession of the prior and canons until the dissolution of the monastery, when it passed to the dean and chapter. The nave formed the parish church of St. Mary, and belonged to the parishioners. After the civil wars it was cut off from the transepts by a stone wall, and furnished with galleries and a pulpit. A new church to accommodate the parishioners having been built in the abbey grounds in 1870, all these additions were removed, and the nave was restored to the cathedral, adding greatly to the general effect. An interesting event in the history of the parish church was the marriage of Sir Walter Scott to Miss Carpenter on the 24th December 1797.
He had made the acquaintance of Miss Carpenter at Gilsland in July while touring in the Lake district. She had "a form that was fashioned as light as a fay's, a complexion of the clearest and lightest olive; eyes large, deep-set, and dazzling, of the finest Italian brown; and a profusion of silken tresses black as the raven's wing." Scott was strongly attracted to her, and within six months she became his wife.
A tombstone under the west window shows the