"
Indeed, such was their malice that it is wonderful to see how much
loveliness remains.
No cathedral, I think, and certainly no lesser church in England is so
completely representative of the whole history of our architecture as
is Chichester. In Salisbury we have the most uniform building in our
island, in Chichester the most various, for it possesses work in every
style, from the time of the Saxons to that of Sir Gilbert Scott.
It was Bishop Ralph who before 1108 built the church we know, and
completed it save upon the west front, where only the lower parts of
the south-western tower are Norman. But work earlier than his, Saxon
work, may be seen in the south aisle of the choir, where there are two
carved stones representing Christ with Martha and Mary and the Raising
of Lazarus. Bishop Ralph's church was badly damaged by fire in 1114,
and it would seem that the four western bays of the nave date from the
following rebuilding and restoration. Then in 1187 the Cathedral was
burnt again, and Bishop Seffrid vaulted it for the first time--till
then only the aisles had been vaulted--building great buttresses to
support this and re-erecting the inner arcade of the clerestory.
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