A Survey of the City of Worcester

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Heming. that church. Thi monument, which is faid ' 343- to have been a work of admirable art, was taken down by archdeacon Alric, in the time of K. Edward the Confeflbr, in order to enlarge the choir of St. Peter's. That church was Aogl.Sac ftill ftanding in the time of St. Wulftan, who iLp.247.fometimes...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Heming. that church. Thi monument, which is faid ' 343- to have been a work of admirable art, was taken down by archdeacon Alric, in the time of K. Edward the Confeflbr, in order to enlarge the choir of St. Peter's. That church was Aogl.Sac ftill ftanding in the time of St. Wulftan, who iLp.247.fometimes kept his midnight vigils in it. When, or by whom, it was demolifhed, we have no account. It is even uncertain where it flood. Moft probably, it was on the ground between the bifhop's palace and the prefent cathedral. Duke Wiferd's monument appears to have been at the end of the High- ftreet; for, a mile being meafured from it northwards, another ftone pile, with like carvings, was erected at the mile's end, which was called the White Stane, and gave name to a diftrict, or tything, without the city, called Whhftanes to this day. SECT. IV. Of St. Mary's' Cathedral and Monaftery, till the time of King Henry V11L new cathedral, raifed and dedicated JL by archbifhop Ofwald, would not have perpetuated his name, if he had done nothing elfe that was memorable. It could not efcape in the conflagration of the city, which was abandoned to the cruelty of Hardicnute's foldiers, in the year 1041. But the ravages of fire, on a ftone edifice, might be foon repaired. The improvements in architecture, which the Normans introduced, brought Ofwald's ftructure into contempt. The Norman nobles were addicted toto pilgrimages: many of them travelled to the Holy Land, and brought thence a loftier ftyle of building, the art of vaulting roofs with it one, in angular compartiments, and thefafhion of adorning blank walls with batoons, horizontal and columnar, and arches interpofed, luxuriant in their mouldings. What is now called the Gothic architecture, was then approaching to its perfection. Bif..