LEGEND OF AN ANCIENT MINSTER.
I.
Fairchester Abbey is noted for the mixed character of its architecture.
Such a confused blending of styles is very rarely to be met with in any
of our English cathedrals. There is no such thing as uniformity and no
possibility of tracing out the original architect's plan; it has been so
altered by later builders.
The Norman pillars of the nave still remain, but they are surmounted by
a vaulted Gothic roof. The side aisles of the choir are also Norman, but
this heavier work is most beautifully screened from view and completely
panelled over with the light tracery of the later Perpendicular.
It is almost impossible to adequately describe the beauties of this
noble choir. The architect seems to have been inspired, in the face of
unusual difficulty, to preserve all that was beautiful in the work of
his predecessors, and to blend it in a marvellous manner with his more
perfect conceptions. There is nothing sombre or heavy about it. It is a
perfect network of tall, slender pillars and gauzy tracery, and at the
east end there is the finest window to be seen in this country,
harmonising in the colour of its glass with the rest of the building;
shedding, in the sun's rays, no gloomy, heavy colourings, but bright
golden, creamy white, and even pink tints, on the receptive freestone,
which, unlike marble, is not cold or forbidding, but naturally warm and
pleasing to the eye.
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