Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Saint Albans Part 6

Henry Small, 1817.

Henry J.B. Nicholson, 1835.

Sir John C. Hawkins, Bart., 1866.

Archdeacon Walter John Lawrance,[12] 1868.

[12] Dean since July, 1900.

The Church of St. Albans was in the diocese of Lincoln until 1845, when it was handed over to Rochester. In 1877 Parliament pa.s.sed a bill for the division of the populous diocese of Rochester into two parts; the northern to be called the see of St. Albans, the southern to retain the name of Rochester. The Right Rev. Dr. Claughton, then Bishop of Rochester, elected to take the northern division of his old diocese and became Bishop of St. Albans. He was succeeded in 1890 by John Wogan Festing, D.D., who died in 1903.

Both of these bishops are buried in the churchyard on the north side of the nave. On Dr. Festing's death the Right Rev. Edgar Jacob, D.D., was translated to St. Albans from the diocese of Newcastle, and was enthroned in May, 1903.

The Church of St. Albans, although legally a cathedral church, yet differs in certain particulars from most of the other churches of this rank in England. It is also used as a parish church, of which the Dean is rector. He has the same powers, responsibilities, and duties as the rector of any other parish. It is sometimes said that the nave is the parish, and the part eastward of the rood screen the cathedral church, but it is not so. The Dean as rector has power over the whole, and paris.h.i.+oners have right of access to every part of the building, just as in any other parish church; and the Dean as their rector can be called upon to baptize, marry, visit, and bury the people under his charge.

Churchwardens are also appointed and have their statutory rights. There are some honorary canons, but as yet no "canons residentiary," nor are there "priests vicars" (or "minor canons"), lay vicars, or choristers on the foundation. The choir is a voluntary one, the clergy under the Dean are curates.

The two parts of the church that are ordinarily in use are the Lady Chapel, where morning and evening prayer is said daily on week-days, and the nave, which is used for the Sunday services. There is at present no high altar in place under the great screen, but one will probably be placed there as soon as the final touches are put by Mr. Gilbert to the carved work of the reredos. The choir proper is not, however, capable of holding a large congregation. It was, of course, originally intended to hold the monks only. The part eastward of the stalls might on special occasions, such as the enthronement of a bishop, the installation of a dean, be temporarily fitted with chairs, but it is not likely that any permanent seats will be placed here, since as a matter of fact the nave and Lady Chapel answer all ordinary requirements.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD FLOOR TILE.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE GREAT GATE.]

CHAPTER V.

THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

#The Great Gatehouse.#--In the days of its prosperity the Abbey was surrounded by a wall within which, as was usually the case, were placed all the buildings that were necessary for monastic life: cloister, dormitory, refectory, kitchen, chapter-house, infirmary, guest-house, stables, dovecote, granary, garden, orchard, vineyard, lodgings for the abbot, prior, cellarer, cook, and servants, fish-house, fish-ponds, as well as cemeteries for dead brethren. A number of gatehouses gave access to this inclosure: the Great Gate, which alone remains standing; the Waxhouse Gate, where the tapers used for burning before the shrines were made; the Water-gate, St. Germain's gate, and others. The chief of these was the Great Gate to the west of the Abbey Church. It was built in the time of Thomas de la Mare about 1365, on the site of a previously existing gatehouse which had been destroyed by a violent gale a few years earlier. It was not only a gateway, but a prison wherein offending monks, and also laymen of the town, over which the Abbot had civic jurisdiction, were imprisoned. The Gatehouse was stormed by rioters in the time of Wat Tyler's rebellion, the monks in their terror giving wine and beer to their a.s.sailants, but news arriving of Wat Tyler's death, the rioters dispersed; the ringleaders were tried and condemned to death, among them John Ball, who, with his seventeen condemned companions, pa.s.sed the time between their trial and execution in the dungeons beneath the Gatehouse. In 1480 a printing press was set up in this gatehouse; after the dissolution it was used as the borough gaol.

During the Napoleonic wars some French prisoners were confined within the walls. In 1868 the Gatehouse was found too small for use as a gaol, and a new prison was built near the Midland Station. The Gatehouse was bought by the governors of the grammar school, and in 1870 the school was removed from the Lady Chapel to the Gatehouse. There are dungeons beneath the level of the roadway; over the archway is the large room where the sessions used to be held, with other rooms on either side. In this building some old chimney-pieces may still be seen. Although the present foundation dates from the reign of Edward VI., yet a school had existed in St. Albans from very early time. Some think it was founded by Ulsinus. Be this as it may, it is certain that Geoffrey de Gorham, who was afterwards Abbot (1119-1146), first came to England during the time of Richard of Albini (the fifteenth Abbot), with a view of being master of the school. In 1195 we read that the school had more scholars than any other in England. The school in these early days stood to the north of the Great Gate on the other side of the street that runs down the hill on the north side of the triangular graveyard known as Romelands, where a Protestant martyr, one George Tankerfield, a cook, born in York, but living in London, was burnt on August 26th, 1555, during the reign of Mary I.

#Sopwell Nunnery.#--There are a few remains of Sopwell Nunnery in a field near the river Ver, to the south-east of the city. They may be reached by taking the first turning to the right hand after crossing the bridge on the way from the city down Holywell Hill. This nunnery was founded by Geoffrey of Gorham, sixteenth Abbot, about the middle of the twelfth century. Two women, pious and ascetic, had taken up their abode on this spot in a hut which they built for themselves, and Geoffrey determined to build them a more permanent dwelling, and make them the nucleus of a religious house. They accepted the Benedictine Rule, and gradually the nunnery increased in size, and many ladies of high birth took the veil here. One of the abbesses wrote the "Boke of St. Albans,"

not, as might be imagined, an account of the saint or of the religious house, but a treatise on hawking, hunting, and fis.h.i.+ng. It was printed in 1483 at the St. Albans printing press. When the nunnery was dissolved, Sir Richard Lee, to whom the Abbey lands were granted, turned it into a dwelling-house for himself. The ruins consist of ivy-clad walls of brick and flint, pierced by square-headed windows, but containing few interesting features.

The name is said to have been derived from the fact that the two women mentioned above soaked or sopped their dry bread in water drawn from the Holy Well or some well in the immediate neighbourhood of their hut.

#St. Peter's Church.#--This church, standing at no great distance from the cathedral, may be reached by taking the footway called the Cloisters, crossing High Street, pa.s.sing between the Clock Tower and the picturesque and ancient inn, the Fleur de Lys, and through the quaint street of gabled houses known as French Row, into St. Peter's Street.

The church was originally built about 948 A.D., by Ulsinus, the sixth Abbot of St. Albans, but none of his work remains. It seems to have been almost entirely rebuilt at the end of the fifteenth century, and most of it is Perpendicular in character. It has a central tower rebuilt about a hundred years ago, and until that time had a transept. There is a clerestory on either side of the nave. The chancel and the west end with its circular window show signs of Lord Grimthorpe's style of restoration. The tower contains a fine peal of ten bells. In the windows of the south aisle is some richly coloured modern Belgian gla.s.s by Cap.r.o.nnier; in the windows of the north aisle are some fragments of fourteenth or fifteenth century gla.s.s, including the arms of Edmund, the fifth son of Edward III., from whom in the male line Edward IV. was descended, though he also traced his descent and his claim to the throne from Lionel, the third son, through his daughter Philippa.

In the churchyard, which is of considerable extent, many of those who fell in the two battles of St. Albans were buried.

#St. Michael's Church.#--St. Michael's Church is further from the cathedral than St. Peter's. To reach it one must go westward from the Clock Tower, along High Street and its continuations, down the hill past Romelands, where, as we have seen, George Tankerfield, condemned by Bishop Bonner as a Protestant heretic, was burnt at the stake. At last a bridge over the Ver is reached, and, turning round to the left after crossing it, we see St. Michael's Church before us. It has within the last ten years lost its Saxon tower, a new one with no pretention to beauty, pierced by two pentagonal windows in the third stage, having been built on a slightly different foundation. It stands within the area once inclosed by the walls of Verulamium, and Sir Gilbert Scott conjectured that it was originally the Basilica of the Roman city altered for Christian wors.h.i.+p; but probably, though it may stand on the same site, it is of more recent date, though still of great age. Like the cathedral, its walls are built of Roman brick and flint. The plan is irregular: there is a nave and chancel, a large south aisle, or rather chantry, the eastern gable of which is of half-timber construction, below which are two tall round-headed windows far apart, with a small circular opening between them; the western gable has an opening with louvre boards. The tower projects from the north aisle, its western wall being flush with the west end of the nave; on the outside in the south wall of the chancel is a canopied niche over a flat slab a few inches above the level of the ground. The south door, within a porch, has a pointed top beneath a wide, round-headed arch springing from imposts.

The arcading of the nave was formed by cutting arches through what probably were at one time the outside walls of the church; two of these on the south side open into the chapel. The carved oak pulpit of early seventeenth-century work, with its sounding-board and iron frame for the hour-gla.s.s, demands attention; but the chief attraction of the church for many is the alabaster statue of Francis Bacon, which is placed in a niche in the north wall of the chancel. He wished to be buried in this church, as his mother was already buried there, and moreover it was the parish church of his house at Gorhambury, and the only Christian church within the walls of ancient Verulam, from which he took one of his t.i.tles.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONUMENT OF LORD BACON. "_Sic sedebat._"]

#St. Stephen's Church.#--There are two ways of getting to this church: either by following the road that runs south from St. Michael's, and after reaching the top of the hill turning sharply to the left; or by going from the centre of the city down Holywell Hill and straight on, past the London and North-Western Railway Station, up St. Stephen's Hill. The church spire is a conspicuous landmark. The churchyard is exceedingly pretty, and the church most interesting. It was originally built in the tenth century by Abbot Ulsinus, rebuilt in the time of Henry I., restored in the fifteenth, and again by Sir Gilbert Scott in the nineteenth century. The south porch is of timber; under it is a square-headed doorway; to the east of it is a chapel once called "the Leper's Chapel," but probably a chantry, now used as a vestry. There is a small aisle on the south side. The spire is a broach and stands at the west end. On the north side of the nave is a wide, blocked-up, round-headed arch; through the blocking wall a pointed doorway was cut, but this is also now blocked up. There is a door of Perpendicular style, with a square-headed label terminated by heads much weathered, in the west wall of the tower. The walls of this church are of the usual materials, flint and Roman brick.

The lectern is of bra.s.s, and bears round its foot the inscription "Georgius Creichtoun Episcopus Dunkeldensis." There were two Scotch bishops of this name; both lived in the sixteenth century. How the lectern reached St. Albans no one knows for certain, but it may possibly have been part of the plunder carried off by Sir Richard Lee from Scotland. It was hidden for safety in a grave at the time of the civil wars, but was found again in 1748 when the vault was opened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD ROUND HOUSE, "THE FIGHTING c.o.c.kS."]

#The Clock Tower.#--This is a most conspicuous object in the city, standing near the market-place, almost due north of the Lady Chapel. It was built at the beginning of the fifteenth century in order that the curfew bell might be hung in it. This had been cast some seventy years before the building of the tower, and had hung in the central tower of the Abbey Church; it weighs about a ton. It bears the inscription: "Missi de coelis, habeo nomen Gabrielis." The tower was restored under the direction of Sir Gilbert Scott in 1865, and in the process has lost most of the interest it possessed.

#The Old Round House.#--This curious old house, also known as "The Fighting c.o.c.ks," stands near the river at the bottom of the roadway that leads down from the town through the Great Gate, and probably occupies the position of the Abbey gate that was known as St. Germain's Gate.

There is little doubt that the foundations of this house date back to the time of the monastery, and may have been the foundations of the gateway. The cellars, it is said, appear to have an opening into some subterranean way. The name of "Fighting c.o.c.ks" no doubt indicates that after the dissolution of the monastery a c.o.c.kpit existed here. It is said that it was at St. Germain's Gatehouse that the monks kept their fis.h.i.+ng tackle, rods and nets. A claim is made for this building, that it is the oldest inhabited house in England, a claim that many other buildings may well dispute.