Identifier: imperialislanden00hunn (find matches)
Title: The imperial island; England's chronicle in stone;
Year: 1886 (1880s)
Authors: Hunnewell, James Frothingham, 1832-1910
Subjects: Architecture
Publisher: Boston, Ticknor
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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parts a sombre effect to the delightful architecture. Thechapter-house itself, octagonal and groined, but without a cen-tral pillar, is designed with an arcade around the base and loftywindows filling the sides and giving an airy, light, and charm-ing effect. All the windows have stained glass, the rich tintsof which relieve the solemnity of the other coloring. Clean,smooth stone with a light buff-brownish surface forms thewalls, but is varied by Purbeck marble in slender shafts bear-ing carved canopies on the arcades, and making stripes of toomuch prominence. Enamelled tiles, chiefly yellow or deep-brown (the former prevailing), make the pavement in keepingwith the coloring on the graceful vaults, on which numeroussmall figures are painted on a background of pale-bluish gray,relieved by similar but darker tints on the ribs, and red andblue lines in their hollows. The crypt, as already stated, is the oldest part of the cathe-dral, and although dark and damp, and not as imposing as the
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YORK. 211 crypts at Canterbury or Glasgow, is very interesting and exten-sive ; for it is almost as long as the choir, and contains curiouswork, the earliest of which is a piece of masonry laid in theherring-bone manner, thought to be a part of the side of theearly Saxon church. Otherwise the structure is Norman, hav-ing a vault supported by round, varied pillars, only five and ahalf feet high (four of which are particularly curious), and bysemi-circular arches. Strange as it seems, important portionsof the crypt were filled with earth and were forgotten for seve-ral centuries, and even now the place is so dark that it mustbe visited by artificial light. The central tower commands a wide and very pleasant viewfrom its top, gained after traversing a turnpike stair at thesouthwestern corner of the transept, and thence a path alongthe parapet to the tower. On that the low-pitched, leaded roofis bordered by ashy-gray battlements, and although the stonecomposing them looks pale and worn, i

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