Bells Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Carlisle | Page 5

his "Journal":
"From thence we came to Carlisle.
"On the First-day following I went into the steeple-house: and after the
priest had done, I preached the truth to the people, and declared the
word of life amongst them. The priest got away, and the magistrates
desired me to go out of the steeple-house. But I still declared the way of
the Lord unto them, and told them, 'I came to speak the word of life and
salvation from the Lord amongst them.' The power of the Lord was
dreadful amongst them in the steeple-house, so that the people
trembled and shook, and they thought the steeple-house shook: and
some of them feared it would fall down on their heads. The magistrates'
wives were in a rage and strove mightily to be at me: but the soldiers
and friendly people stood thick about me. At length the rude people of
the city rose, and came with staves and stones into the steeple-house
crying, 'Down with these round-headed rogues'; and they threw stones.
Whereupon the governor sent a file or two of musketeers into the
steeple-house, to appease the tumult, and commanded all the other
soldiers out. So those soldiers took me by the hand in a friendly manner,
and said they would have me along with them. When we came forth into
the street, the city was in an uproar, and the governor came down; and
some of those soldiers were put in prison for standing by me, and for
me, against the town's-people.

"The next day the justices and magistrates of the town granted a
warrant against me and sent for me to come before them. After a large
examination they committed me to prison as a blasphemer, a heretic,
and a seducer: though they could not justly charge any such thing
against me."
Fuller, about 1660, describes the building as "black but comely, still
bearing the remaining signes of its former burning."
Further mischief was also done to the building by the Jacobite
prisoners who were lodged in it after the defeat of the Young
Pretender.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century some attempts were made at
restoring the cathedral, but they for the most part consisted of hiding
the beautiful choir roof with a stucco groined ceiling, and plentifully
whitewashing the building.
"The roof was 'elegantly' vaulted with wood. But this failing by length
of time, together with the lead roof, the dean and chapter some few
years ago new laid the roof, and the ceiling being totally ruined and
destroyed they in the year 1764 contracted for a stucco groined ceiling,
and for cleaning and whitening the whole church. And finding the new
lead much torn and broken by wind for want of a ceiling underneath,
the upper tire of that was done again, and a coping added to the
rigging. And thus proceeding from one repair to another the whole
expence hath amounted to upwards of £ 1300."[1]
[1] Nicholson and Burn, page 249.
Eastward of the stalls the choir was formerly separated from the aisles
by screens of elaborate tracery work. When the cathedral was
"repaired and beautified" as just described, they were removed to
outbuildings, and by far the greater part lost or destroyed.
The cathedral was restored 1853-7, in good taste, at a cost of about £
15,000. Mr. Ewan Christian, the architect of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, undertook the work, and happily succeeded in

counteracting the "repairing and beautifying" of 1764.
Carlisle is not a large or notable cathedral, but its delightful Early
English choir with its magnificent east window will ever redeem it from
being insignificant or uninteresting.
CHAPTER II
THE EXTERIOR
On examining the north side of the cathedral, it is apparent that more
than one plan has been followed in the construction of the building as it
stands.
There are the remains of a Norman nave whose roof is lower than the
choir roof. The choir is Early English with clerestory windows, and the
easternmost bay (the retro-choir) Late Decorated; while the tower is
Perpendicular. In the north window of the north transept we have a
specimen of work of the nineteenth century. Thus the cathedral supplies
examples of architecture from the Norman period down to the present
time.
The moderate height of the #Nave# (65 ft.), and the treatment of its
details, are quite characteristic of the best work of the period when it
was erected.
The bays of the aisle are separated by flat buttresses about five and a
half feet wide projecting nearly one foot beyond the wall, and the
parapet wall in which they terminate is supported above the windows
by a corbel table of shields and trefoil heads.[2]
[2] These date from about 1400.
Upon the string-course which runs along the wall unbroken by the