Architecture
The Abbey has several distinct architectural styles throughout. Saxon features still remain in some parts of the Abbey, mainly around the Western door. Roger of Caen knocked down the bulk of the Saxon church and replaced it with a much larger, Norman style church.
The Lady Chapel and Bishop Robert's Chapel were added in the 13th Century in the Early English style, and in the 15th century, the choir section was rebuilt in the Perpendicular style, including the fan-vaulting Sherborne is still famous for, the remodelling by William Smyth, under Abbot John Brunyng (1415–1436). The vaulting is believed to have finished in 1490.
During this renovation, a riot in the town caused a fire that damaged much of the renovation, causing delays. Traces of the fire's effects can still be seen in the reddening of the walls under the Tower. The fire and its effects also caused the design of the Nave to be altered. Some of the Nave's pillars are Norman piers cased in Perpendicular panelling.
St Katherine's Chapel, built in the 14th century, but altered in the 15th, contains examples of early Renaissance classicism architecture
Read more about this topic: Sherborne Abbey
Famous quotes containing the word architecture:
“I don’t think of form as a kind of architecture. The architecture is the result of the forming. It is the kinesthetic and visual sense of position and wholeness that puts the thing into the realm of art.”
—Roy Lichtenstein (b. 1923)
“Defaced ruins of architecture and statuary, like the wrinkles of decrepitude of a once beautiful woman, only make one regret that one did not see them when they were enchanting.”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and when the second-sight of the mind is opened, now one color or form or gesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had been emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)