HOUSES OF THE CANTERBURY
WEAVERS.
The houses are reflected in the Stour just by King's Bridge, which
joins the High Street to St. Peter's Street.]
Across the great arch opening into the base of the tower is the
supporting arch inserted by Prior Goldstone II., who, as already
stated, built the Angel Steeple above the roof-line where it had been
left by Chillenden. The arch has been called a disfigurement, and as
it was not originally intended such an opinion may be justifiable, and
yet the beauty of the reticulated stonework and the consummate skill
which conceived the bold simplicity of design is so satisfying that it
is scarcely possible to wish that it were absent. Beneath this flying
arch appears the splendid western screen, approached by the flight of
steps necessitated by the crypt or undercroft, for, being on perfectly
level ground, there would have been no need for this unique feature.
Among the monuments in the nave aisles those on the south include the
memorial to Dean Farrar, who is buried in the great cloister, and
William Broughton, Bishop of Sydney and Adelaide, who was a scholar at
the King's School. In the north aisle the Tudor monument to Sir T.
Hales showing his burial at sea is curious and picturesque, and other
memorials are to Charles I.'s organist, Orlando Gibbons, and to the
Archbishops Boyes and Sumner.
The north-west transept, on the left as the steps to the choir are
ascended, is the scene of Becket's martyrdom, and the vergers show the
traditional spot where he fell. From the opposite transept, steps lead
down to the undercroft, and also up to the south choir aisle--the way
the pilgrims approached the shrine of St. Thomas. Also opening from
the south-west transept is St. Michael's or the Warrior's Chapel, as
it is now popularly called. In the illustration facing p. 30, the tomb
of Lady Margaret Holland and her two husbands, John Beaufort, Earl of
Somerset, and Thomas, Duke of Clarence, is shown occupying the centre
of the chapel, but it just misses a more interesting, if much less
beautiful, tomb, that of Stephen Langton, the courageous Archbishop
who took such a leading part in forcing John to sign Magna Charta. The
plain sarcophagus is partly within and partly outside the chapel, for
when it was rebuilt in the fourteenth century it was extended so much
to the east that it became necessary either to move Langton's tomb or
else to make an arch in the wall, and the latter cou
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