Supervisor: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Stefan Breitling
Coordinator: Dr. Zeynep Aygen, Mike Underwood, Sarah Lupton, James Gordon
Participants: Andy Bradley, John Campbell, Furgac Levent, Kate Mackay, Annie Martin, Caroline Rye, Peter Webberley, Anne Geller
As already in the previous years also 2009 the cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral became object of study to students of the MSc Historic Building Conservation Course at the University of Portsmouth. Accompanying the restoration of the cathedral, the researches, provided by Mr. Edds, Head of Buildings and Estates in cooperation with the Otto-Friedrich-Universit?t Bamberg, this time dealt with the architectural history of the east wing of the cloister with focus on the southeast exterior wall of the cloister, the tracery of bay 19 and the constructive characteristics of the two-storey bays of the northern part of the east wing.
Analysis of the southeast exterior wall
The east wing is said to be the first part of the cloisters being built in the middle of the 13th century. Especially the south-western entrance of the transept of the cathedral and the access to the famous chapter house give important determinations for the geometric layout of the cloister. Its north wing focuses on the door of the transept; bay 17 is centred on the axis of the chapter house. It is obvious, that there was no exact plan of the cloister when the chapter house was erected, because the module of the bays doesn’t fit, and it was therefore necessary to condense the last bay to the north wing.
Knowing this, it was interesting to read from the masonry of the exterior wall of the east wing how it has originally been built. A photogrammetric survey helped to record the directions and phases in which the stones where put in place (fig. 3). A further analysis of the building method was carried out using the tachymeter to show the courses that ran through several bays together with the irregularities in the outline of the wall. This plan was placed on top of photographs taken of the bays to gain a better understanding of the building process. The drawing was then overlaid with directional arrows and joints that indicate the direction the cloister wall was built.
Unsurprisingly the directions correspond with the scaffolding holes. Occasionally the masons would build up a buttress and fill in the courses to match. There is a levelling course at about one meter underneath the first set of scaffolding marks, another at the springing of the attic in about five meters from the ground which continues throughout the whole length of the wall. An in-depth look at the stones at the corners between the chapter house, passageway and cloister wall indicate that the construction of all three were around the same time and were laid out together until the height of about one meter. The corner between the passage and the cloister has more continuous courses, the chapter house buttress connects to the passageway and it appears as though some of the courses were chiselled in situ to allow for the tracery windows in the corridor.
The five vaults in the cloister bays 16 to 20 correspond to buttresses on the exterior wall except where the last buttress would be expected. This missing buttress together with a scarf in the wall had led to the reconstruction of two separate building phases. But also in the leftmost bay with the passageway one can see continuous courses. Also the scaffolding holes correspond left and right from this interruption and the position of the stones on both sides makes it difficult to believe in a former corner in this area. The outline shows that there was an older wall running eastwards, when the masons erected the cloister. Because of the wall they could spare the buttress in this place.
Analysis of the tracery of bay 19
Detailed investigation of the tracery of the inner wall of bay 19 may reveal the construction methods utilised by the medieval builders? responsible (fig. 2). 30 different masonry elements in total could have been identified. From this the most likely phasing of its construction can be deduced.
The large rose window section may be the consistent feature; a pre defined radius that was the key element of proportion within the cloister construction with selected stones tailored to the space. As indicated on the drawing the radius of the large rose dictated the radius of the secondary arches. The likeliest construction sequence may have been as illustrated on the drawing (fig 2). Temporary supports are likely to have been placed at element 16/17 with elements 18 & 19 tailored to complete the circle at the end of the 2nd phase of construction; the supports would then be removed once the apex voussiers (elements 24/25) were positioned. Fillets suggest that errors were made in the masonry elements manufactured; these fillets run through the profile, internal to external, which may confirm that they are not repaired sections. A deeper recess to the moulding on the masonry profile and the existence of iron framing confirms the deliberate insertion of glazed tracery.
Viewing other bays it is clear that every bay was tailored individually to the width between the buttress constructions. A slight difference in stone sizes is apparent although the number of elements is consistent with the exception of bay 19. Bay 19 is the widest within the east wing and consists of an extra element (28 as opposed to 27 in the remaining bays including bay 11, the narrowest within the cloister). Viewed externally the quatrefoil to the left differs not only from its counterpart but from all remaining bays, excluding the narrow bay number 3 which has trefoils. This squashed arch or horseshoe shape could be explained by a later addition or a special symbolic meaning.
(Studierendenkanzlei)
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