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Salisbury Cathedral.

more bays between them; and the main roof would thereby have been extended farther eastward, whereas the church now drops too soon into a cluster of low roofs which deprive it of the proper length, which its spire requires more than any church. It is singular how very few spires there are of any considerable size, of that the best period of architecture. Many people talk of Salisbury as if it were all of one style, which is a complete mistake. There is no doubt that it suffers from the monotony of the multitude of rather plain EE windows until you come to the Decorated tower, which there is good reason to believe was not even contemplated on anything like that scale when the church was planned and begun.

Length. My investigation of this whole subject of dimensions arose from a discussion in the newspapers in 1864 as to which of our churches had the right to call itself the longest. Several of them may do so on different grounds; but taking the simplest test, of length on the ground plan, the order is undoubtedly, St. Albans (now the longest in the world except St. Peter's at Rome, and with the longest nave also), Winchester, Ely, Canterbury, Westminster, York. But St. Albans and Winchester are both obstructed by internal walls or screens, so that you cannot see the full length; and so is Canterbury, but not so completely, as you could carry a string right through over the screens. At Ely however you can see the full length of 517 feet from the west door of the Galilee to the east window, and it is a yard longer than Canterbury. Externally York has the right to stand first in length as well as area, having the greatest length of unbroken roof, except of course by the tower, while St. Albans and Winchester drop eastward into low Lady Chapels; and Becket's Crown at

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Canterbury is cut off from the rest, almost as much as Henry VII.'s chapel is from Westminster, except that the Crown is much higher. Next to York comes Lincoln, in the length of backbone; for the Galilee at Ely produces no effect externally. Nevertheless Ely looks much the longest, as its central lantern is small compared with the York and Lincoln towers. But York Minster was far exceeded in that respect also by the old cathedral of St. Paul's, which had an unbroken backbone through its whole enormous length of 590 feet inside, and above 600 outside, according to the plan in Dugdale. The recorded length of 690 must have included something else, or else was a mistake. Mr. Longman's book on the successive cathedrals of St. Paul comes to the same conclusion.

St. Albans, Winchester, and Norwich have much the longest naves, reckoning them architecturally to the central tower, though the choir may pass it internally, as it does in all those churches and some others. After them, in another distinct group, come Westminster, Ely, and Peterborough. All these except Westminster were originally Norman. Worcester, Lichfield, and Beverley have the advantage over sundry others which are longer on the plan, by virtue of their full height being carried right through, and not dropping into low Lady Chapels or Galilees. Reckoning by roofs of the full height, but keeping the inside measures for simplicity, the order is as follows: York 486, Lincoln 481, Ely 472, Canterbury 470 (but that is not continuous), St. Albans 425, Winchester 405, Durham 400, Worcester 394, Norwich 388, Salisbury 380, Peterborough 376; and Westminster sinks from 505 to 350, losing both by Henry VII.'s chapel and the apsidal end like Norwich and Peterborough, and Canterbury between the

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Our highest Cathedrals.

choir and Becket's Crown. Indeed Westminster produces no effect of a very long church, especially with the interruption of that wretched St. Margaret's in front of it, which only looks contemptible itself and does not make the Abbey look larger, as some people fancy that it must.

Height. That and York are much the highest, and both may be called practically 100 ft. high inside: but one is three times the width of its nave (ex aisles) and the other little more than twice, whereas the usual English proportion is from 24 to 2, and equality to the entire width: which York has. Westminster looks too high and York too low. Moreover the nave of York ought to have had two more bays of length, 8 being rather a small number, and twice the entire width or four times the middle width being a short length for the nave of a cathedral or a great abbey church. Some of these had 12 and even 13 bays, besides the western towers.

It is singular that Ripon, which can only be placed in the third class of cathedrals, by reason of its shortness, actually comes next to York and Westminster in height and sectional area, i.e. the height x the width of the nave. Indeed it exceeds Westminster and all but York in width; but like York it is not stone-vaulted. The church which really exceeds them all in height x width, and in width alone with a real stone vault, is King's Chapel, comparing it of course with naves proper, not including aisles. I again exclude St. Paul's on account of its entire difference of construction and immense thickness of piers. But our largest vaults have not half the sectional area of some of the foreign ones, such as Amiens and Cologne, and are greatly exceeded by a good many of their smaller churches,

Height and Width generally equal.

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including some of which I have not the exact heights and widths. The rule of equality of height and total width holds even in King's Chapel, if you take in the width of the side chapels which fill up the deep space between the buttresses, making a kind of narrow aisle, as a passage runs through most of them.

It may also be observed that the aisles are generally about half the width and half the height of the naves in churches of the cathedral or monastic type, or we may say, in vaulted churches, though no rule was observed in mere parish churches. Bristol cathedral and the Temple church, besides many of less note, have no clearstory, or the aisles are nearly as high as the nave; but that is a bad construction both for light and appearance, and accordingly is very rare and not to be followed; and the aisles of Bristol are unusually high, especially for a church of that general size. The nave, which had entirely vanished, has been rebuilt, and is intended to have two western towers, which will look too near the central one at so short a distance as 100 ft. even if they are otherwise satisfactory, which they certainly are not in the drawings.

I have occasionally put two or three churches together in the list a little out of order, for reasons which will be apparent: s indicates a spire, and c or w attached to it means central or western. To prevent confusion, I put w2 for two western towers, and nw, sw, when the two have to be distinguished. C means that the Chapter-house remains; and that the dimensions are only approximate. In other cases c means choir and n nave.