Bells Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle | Page 9

matrix of what was once a magnificent brass.
The #Font#, standing on a fine marble flooring close to the west window, has bronze figures of St. John Baptist, the Virgin and Child, and St. Philip. It was designed by Sir A. Blomfield, and presented by Archdeacon Prescott 1891.
[Illustration: LONGITUDINAL SECTION, NORTH.]
The #Organ.#--The former organ built by Avery, London, has been given to Hexham Abbey Church. The present one extends from one side of the eastern tower arch to the other. It was built by Willis (1856), and the diaper work was executed by Hardman. About the year 1877 it was enlarged at a cost of nearly �� 1000.
#North Transept.#--The transept is very lofty and very dark. It is about 22 feet wide, and its length from north to south is nearly 114 feet.
Standing near the entrance to the north choir aisle, looking southwards and across the nave, a capital general view of the remains of the Norman portion of the cathedral can be obtained.
This end of the transept was rebuilt after the fire of 1292. Having been greatly injured by another fire that broke out about a hundred years later, Bishop Strickland rebuilt it (1400-19.) During the restoration of the cathedral it was once again rebuilt.
On the west side is a Norman arch, the entrance to the north aisle of the nave. The sinking of the tower piers has partly crushed it out of shape. The portion of an arch visible above, acts as a buttress to the tower arches. To the right is a late thirteenth-century window filled with glass in memory of the Rev. Walter Fletcher, Chancellor of Carlisle (died 1846). This window exhibits plate tracery--tracery cut, as it were, out of a flat plate of stone, without mouldings, not built up in sections. It is the transitional link between the lancet and tracery systems.
The doorway in the corner communicates with the transept roof.
The north window is very large, and is filled with stained glass in memory of five children of A.C. Tait, Dean of Carlisle, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. They all died of scarlet fever in the short space of five weeks, 6th March to 9th April 1858.
This end of the transept was till quite recently railed off, and used as the consistory court of the Chancellor of Carlisle.
Originally the transept had a chapel on the eastern side opening with a single arch, similar to St. Catherine's Chapel in the south transept.
The opening to the north choir aisle is Decorated in style; above this is a portion of an arch for buttressing the tower-arches.
[Illustration: VIEW ACROSS THE TRANSEPTS IN 1840. From Billings.]
To the right is the blocked-up entrance of the old Norman choir aisle, an exact counterpart of the present south choir aisle entrance.
The roof is now an open timber one of the original pitch.
Near the north-east pier of the tower is a well, completely covered over. This, it is said, was done by a former dean, on the supposition that the well, or the water, in some occult fashion, affected the music in the cathedral.
The #Tower# was rebuilt by Bishop Strickland (1400-19), who used the Norman piers, and placed upon them other columns of about the same length. The Early Norman piers have square-fluted capitals and are a little higher than the arches of the nave. The added columns have capitals carved with birds and foliage, and are carried up to the arches of the tower. This rebuilding was rendered necessary by the shifting of its foundations. The piers sank nearly one foot, and the arches near them have been to some extent distorted. Springs of water are said to run across the transept from north to south, and this may explain the sinking, which probably happened before the erection of the present choir.
Clustered columns uphold the transept arches, but the western and eastern arches are supported on each side by a single column terminating in a bracket at about the level of the base of the triforium. This was arranged so as to increase the width of the passage between the piers from the choir to the nave.
The decoration of the eastern arch capitals consists of the badges of the Percy family--the crescent and fetterlock. Hotspur was Governor of the town and Warden of the Marches under Henry IV., and it is probable that he aided in the work of the bishop. The western arch capitals have, as decoration, the rose and escallop shell alternately--badges of the Dacres and Nevilles, who also may have been benefactors to the cathedral.
Across the north transept from the upper capitals is a depressed arch of stone with Perpendicular tracery.
#South Transept.#--With the exception of the wall itself, the south arm of the transept is modern. The ancient wall, eight feet thick, is quite suitable for a fortress. A richly-decorated modern doorway