At the present day St. Saviour’s Cathedral is most unfortunate in its surroundings, and cannot be seen as a whole from any point, near or distant. Hemmed in as the church is by London Bridge on the east, the Borough Market and railway arches on the south, and by tall warehouses on the other sides, the confined space in which it stands is a decided hindrance to the near perspective, while the surrounding buildings shut off the view from a distance in all directions.

The railway line from Cannon Street commands a fairly good prospect from the south-west, as it passes the church in its course. A closer prospect is to be obtained from the London Bridge approach which takes in the Lady Chapel, the east and south sides of the choir, the tower and south transept. A few yards further up the slope we, of course, lose the south aspect, but get a fair view, from the north-east corner, of part of the east front and the north transept, including the new Harvard window in the chapel beneath it. If we descend the short flight of steps at the foot of the bridge, and take up a position in the south-east corner of the open ground outside the church railings, we get a fairly good view of the south side from the Lady Chapel to the south-west porch, but lose sight of much of the east end, and therefore of one of the most characteristic external features.

The church lies in a general east and west direction, and is cruciform in plan, consisting of a nave, north and south transepts, a central tower, and choir, beyond which is the retro-choir, or so-called Lady Chapel. The nave and choir have aisles, but the transepts have not. While strict orientation has been secured in the main building, it will be noticed that the chancel is slightly deflected towards the south, in supposed mystic allusion to the drooping head of the Saviour upon the Cross, a piece of symbolism very frequent in Gothic churches, and here rendered peculiarly appropriate by the dedication.

Starting our perambulation at the East End, it will be noticed that the so-called Lady Chapel is actually an enlargement of the choir, such as we find on a much grander scale at Durham or Fountains, and may be compared to the “Presbytery” at Chichester, from which the Lady Chapel projects, or to the “New Building” at Peterborough Cathedral. This addition was made to the church by Peter de Rupibus in the thirteenth century, as a retro-choir or ambulatory. It was carefully restored by Mr. George Gwilt, in 1832, from much external mutilation to something like its original state. The eastern side consists of four bays, divided by buttresses, and surmounted by pointed gables, with ornamental crosses on the apices. In each of the gables there is a triplet of narrow lancet windows, which light the space between the internal vault and the roof. They have sculptured heads in the moulding above the central light in each triplet. The bays below are lighted by a similar series of larger windows of simpler construction, the moulding of the sides being carried over the lancet points in unbroken continuity. In the north-east corner there is a short hexagonal stair turret, but the opposite corner is simply supported by ordinary buttresses. The walls are made up of rubble and flints, with ashlar dressing, as is supposed to have been the case throughout the original church, where, however, the flints are said to have been squared. In the reign of Edward III, a small Lady Chapel was built against the east end of this retro-choir: it projected from the second bay from the south, where the window was removed to connect it with the church. After the interment of Bishop Andrewes within it, this little appendage became popularly known as the “Bishop’s Chapel.” It was demolished in 1830, on the ground of its supposed interference with the approach to the new London Bridge; but as it only projected thirty-four feet (a distance which would have placed it well within the present churchyard railing) its destruction seems to have been an unnecessary act of vandalism. The retro-choir itself narrowly escaped sharing its fate, but was fortunately spared, and the tomb of Bishop Andrewes was removed to its present position immediately behind the high altar. The true Lady Chapel being destroyed, the dedication seems to have been popularly transferred to the structure so closely associated with it, and most people concerned are now very unwilling to part with the familiar name.

Above the Lady Chapel, as it is now called, we have a view of the East End of the Choir, as restored by Mr. Gwilt at the same time. This part of the church having been considerably altered by Bishop Fox, in or about the year 1520, the restoring architect, though anxious to go back to the thirteenth century work, had scarcely any data to guide him to its reproduction. The result was the more or less original elevation that we now see. It consists of a three-light lancet window at the east end of the choir, with a small circular window, with seven cusps, in the gable above, surmounted by a cross, and a stair-turret, terminating in an octagonal pinnacle at each end of the elevation.

The pitch of Mr. Gwilt’s gable was below that of its predecessor; but with this exception (the responsibility for which lies rather with the building committee than with him) his work must be considered very satisfactory. His body now lies at rest in the family vault in the south-east corner outside his work, and he is commemorated in a window within, as well as in a marble tablet behind the altar-screen.

The South side of the Lady Chapel contains a central window of three lights and geometrical tracery, with a lancet window on the right and left The mouldings of these side windows are not exactly alike, that on the right (of the spectator) being extremely plain, while the other is supported by slender shafts, terminating in delicate floral capitals.

This aspect of the chapel was completely hidden by the parish church of St. Mary Magdalene Overy, erected against it in the thirteenth century, and destroyed in 1822, after having undergone many alterations. The choir entrance, at the intersection of the choir and south transept, is not remarkable, and need not detain us.

The South Transept, which has a public doorway on its eastern side, was erected, with its companion on the north, in the first half of the fourteenth century (circa 1300-1350) in the Decorated style of that period. It was rebuilt by Cardinal Beaufort in the following century, which accounts for certain architectural differences between the two transepts, chiefly noticeable in the windows and in the interior walls. The front of this transept was repaired in brick in 1735, and the restoration of both was taken in hand by Mr. Wallace in 1830. At the earlier date the original window in the south elevation was “enlarged and beautified,” which means that the tracery was taken out, and a cheap substitute inserted, without tracery, and with plain mullions instead of the original elaborate lights. Mr. Wallace improved upon this feeble design by introducing another window, on a pattern partly of his own invention, partly based on a circular window in the adjacent Winchester Palace, which is said to have been singularly ill adapted for stained glass.

When the restoration was undertaken by Mr. Wallace, enough of the old work remained to show that the original design had a high-pitched roof, with a gable recessed behind a straight parapet, and that the large window, though all cusping and tracery had disappeared, was similar, in its main divisions, to that which Sir Arthur Blomfield has inserted. Mr. Wallace’s restorations, here and elsewhere, were made quite independently of the suggestions to be found in the ancient work, which Sir Arthur was before all things anxious to reproduce. In the present window we have a practical reproduction of the original, as far as its features could be ascertained. It consists of five lights, combining the earlier geometrical with the later flowing tracery of the Decorated period, and an element of Perpendicular.

Below the transoms there is a series of unglazed panels, which have not escaped criticism as spoiling the proportions of the window; but most people are satisfied with them in the interior, where the wall arcading at once explains the necessity, and gives effect to the whole. A simple three-light window has been placed in the gable above. The windows on the east and west sides of this transept, though renovated by Sir Arthur Blomfield, date from the time of Edward III, as Mr. Wallace did not interfere with them beyond shortening the length of one on the east. Below the great window in the south elevation there had formerly been an entrance to this transept, to which a wooden porch was added. These are now swept away, and the entrance has been transferred to the eastern side, formerly blocked up by the church of St. Mary Magdalene. Mr. Wallace had changed the design of the buttresses, and affixed pinnacles to them, on the authority of certain old engravings which represent them as existing at an earlier period. It may be said, however, that the old pictures differ very much from each other in such details, and cannot be relied on for accuracy. Sometimes, no doubt, though almost contemporaneous, they represent alterations actually made at the church within a short time of one another; but the discrepancies between them are just as likely to be due to the caprices of individual engravers. On the other hand, it is fair to them to remember the innovations, for better or worse, which the vestry and churchwardens thought it right to make at frequent intervals. Some of them occur in the history of this very transept. For instance, the original gable was removed early in the eighteenth century, and a covering substituted, of a kind which Mr. Dollman humorously describes as “the pleasing novelty of a hipped roof.” Again, in 1679 a sundial was placed over the central window, to give way in 1735 to an ingenious combination of sundial and clock, for which a triangular arrangement, presenting a clock of two faces, was substituted four years later. All these may now be regarded as among the things that have never been, except in the historical lessons they contain.

The Tower, at the intersection of the nave and transepts, is 35 ft square externally, and rises to the height of 129 ft 6 in., exclusive of the pinnacles, which stand 34 ft higher. The exterior walls throughout consist of the intermixture of flint and stone, characteristic of the rest of the church, except the transepts, which are of Bath stone. It has been stated that the tower was originally supported at the angles by buttresses, but it is not at all certain that this was the case, and it would have been an unusual and dangerous experiment to remove them, unless the tower had been altogether rebuilt. That the old builders did not shrink from such daring alterations, however, is proved by their having removed the flying buttresses from the original nave, which led to the collapse of the roof in 1469. In a bird’s-eye view of Southwark, including St. Saviour’s Church ‘as it appeared’ in 1543, the buttresses are absent. In an engraving by Hollar (usually accurate), dated 1647, the buttresses are shown. The present appearance of the tower is against the theory, as there is next to nothing for the buttresses to rest on; but it is probable that the angles were altered at the same time, and Mr. Dollman has given his weight to the conjecture, apparently relying on Hollar’s correctness, in preference to less known engravers. The first stage of the tower, just visible above the roof, was erected at the same time as the adjoining transepts. The two upper stages are attributed to Bishop Fox (circa 1520), and are in the Perpendicular style of his date. The uppermost stage is chamfered at the quoins, leaving a small off-set at the level of the next. Each story contains two windows of two lights, transomed, the whole terminating in an embattled parapet, with crocketed pinnacles at the corners, surmounted by vanes. These were put up by Mr. Gwilt in 1818, in place of the old vanes, dated 1689, the pattern of which was slightly different. If the early engravings are to be trusted, Mr. Gwilt also made a considerable alteration in the design of the pinnacles at the same time. The two rooms within the tower are reserved for the ringers and the peal of twelve bells which the church has possessed since 1735.

The South side of the Nave brings us to Sir Arthur Blomfield’s chief restoration, or rather rebuilding, of 1890-1897.

As explained in the introductory chapter, the nave had been walled off from the eastern portion of the church and allowed to drop into ruinous neglect from 1831 till 1839, when a flimsy substitute was begun. The foundation stone was laid by Dr. Sumner, then Bishop of Winchester. The fragile nature of this work may be inferred from the fact that it was finished in the following year, and as the floor was raised seven and a half feet above the old level it was impossible to use the new nave in connection with the choir and transepts.

Guided by the ground plan of the thirteenth-century nave, showing the position of the columns of the arcade, and the outer walls generally, as revealed when the modern brickwork was removed, Sir Arthur has succeeded in giving us a practical reproduction of the original, both in character and material. It will be no disparagement to his admirable work to say that it was made more easy by the labours of his predecessors, Mr. Gwilt and Mr. Dollman, and especially by the careful plans and drawings which the latter gentleman left behind him after fourteen years’ patient study of the fabric. The south elevation exhibits seven bays, divided and supported by flying buttresses, each bay of the clerestory being lighted by a plain lancet window.

The flying buttresses had been removed from the old nave, with disastrous consequences to the original roof, as already stated. They are now replaced, and at once give strength and effect to the elevation, besides bringing it into harmony with the architecture of the choir, where the flying buttresses were never removed. The wall spaces in the aisle below are occupied by five lancet windows, matching those in the clerestory, except in the bay next the transept, where there is a beautiful window of three lights. Before describing it, the interesting fact may be mentioned that the window in the westernmost bay of this aisle had been concealed and protected, while its neighbours were destroyed, through having a small wooden house, or shed, built up against it. The single window thus accidentally preserved, was taken as a model for the new ones throughout the aisle and clerestory, with the exception of the larger aisle window just referred to. This, though also entirely rebuilt, is a modified reproduction of that which filled the same space in the time of Edward II a fine example of the Decorated style. Divided by sub-arcuation into three lights, surmounted by circles of quatrefoil tracery in the spandrels of the arches, and supported by composite shafts, with moulded bases and foliated capitals, this elegant window had been allowed to drop into a ruin. Drawings of it had fortunately been taken before it was too late, and the present work gives us the leading features, and practically the details, of the original.

The most conspicuous object in the whole of this elevation is the Doorway to the south-west, which is the principal entrance to the Cathedral. In all probability the door was placed in this position when the Norman nave was built by Bishop Giffard (circa 1106); but its character was altered by Peter de Rupibus, a century later, to bring it into harmony with the rest of his Early English work, when he remodelled the nave in that style.

The porch that we now have agrees in its main features with the drawings taken of the earlier one before it was destroyed. A deeply recessed and acutely pointed arch is divided into two by a central shaft, with moulded base and foliaged capital. The jambs contain five shafts on each side, which differ from that in the centre, in that they are of Purbeck marble, and banded, in pleasing contrast to the plain stone of their own bases and capitals, and of the (unbanded) central shaft In the tympanum of the double doorway thus formed, there is a pointed arcading, consisting of a central arch and two smaller arches on either side. The deep soffit of the arch in which this elegant arcading is enclosed, is adorned with a series of quatrefoil panels.

From the remains of a bracket discovered in the ruins of the former arcading, it is obvious that the central space was intended for a statue. We are not left to mere conjecture on this point, but have documentary evidence to confirm it, which shows that the recess held a seated figure of the Blessed Virgin, the patroness of the church. The arch is now vacant, though supplied with a suggestive pedestal; and there is one other detail in which the restorer appears to have departed from his original, viz., in not reproducing the small clusters of foliage that were distributed along the hollows of the mouldings.

The long gargoyles projecting horizontally on either side of the roof, and the floriated cross on the apex, are worth notice. The modern restoration is indicated by a cross (patee) carved on the central buttress on this side of the Cathedral, which marks the stone laid by King Edward VII on 24th July, 1900, when His Majesty was Prince of Wales.

The West Front is chiefly remarkable as presenting a dead wall where we usually expect to find the grand entrance. It is a debated question among antiquaries and architects whether the first Norman church ever had a doorway in this front; and the question has not got beyond conjecture as to the Early English church which superseded it in the thirteenth century. It is certain, however, that a rich and elaborate entrance, deeply recessed, was inserted here in the Perpendicular age (sixteenth century), about the same date that the upper stages of the tower were set up, either for the first time, or in place of an earlier doorway.

The same uncertainty attends the history of the great west window; all traces of the original having disappeared when a window of the Perpendicular style was introduced in agreement with the doorway below. Before the alterations, or mutilations, of the seventeenth century, this window was of six lights transomed, with cinquefoil tracery at the heads of the lower (and probably also of the upper) lights, as inferred from the fragments which survived its mutilation.

In the absence of data as to the Early English façade, the architect for the restoration has been thrown to a large extent upon his own resources. The question of the doorway he has answered in the negative. The window he has given us consists of three lancet lights corresponding with those at the east end, but considerably longer, with an unglazed panel of similar design, on either side, diminishing in height from the central light outwards in harmony with the lines of the roof. The north and south ends of the façade are flanked by stair-turrets, square in their lower portion, rising into octagons, and surmounted by sharply pointed roofs. To relieve the monotony of the horizontalism, a simple arcading has been inserted in the wall spaces above the central window, and above the aisle windows (plain lancets) on the right and left Independently of the question of precedent, the absence of a doorway in this front is quite intelligible at the present day, when the church wall almost touches the narrow public pavement, and the close street of lofty business houses allows no room for perspective, or even convenient access.

The North Side of the nave corresponds with the south, each bay containing a lancet window in the clerestory. The spaces in the aisle below are similarly lighted, except in one bay towards the east, where Gower’s monument in the interior necessitates a shorter window, which is here made a double lancet. At the extreme eastern end of this side of the nave we come to a most interesting relic in the remains of the Norman Doorway (twelfth century), which had been the Prior’s entrance from the cloisters. Shut in and completely hidden by brickwork, it was discovered in 1829 in a shocking state of mutilation, but fortunately in situ. It was further mutilated, and bricked up again during the building operations of 1839, to be again revealed when the rubbish of that date was cleared away for the new nave, where the fragments are now carefully preserved in the wall. The archivolt is no more, all that we have being some fragments of the jambs on which it rested, one of which, on the east side (on the returned face), shows two old consecration crosses. In its perfect state this fine specimen of late Norman work is known to have consisted of three orders of shafts (banded) in the jambs, with moulded bases and sculptured capitals, the bold archivolt also displaying three orders.

Of these the outermost was of leaf ornament, the second zigzag, and the third a conventional floral design, suggesting a combination of the trefoil and Greek honeysuckle. The zigzag moulding forming the innermost order was continuous along the jambs and arch. Close to this doorway, on its eastern side, there is a smaller, but equally interesting, relic in the remains of a Holy-water Stoup. It is fixed in a large and deep recess, with an angular arch above it, too dilapidated to afford a hint as to the original moulding, which we can only assume was not unworthy of the rich doorway by its side.

A few yards westwards we are reminded of the antiquity of the site by a mass of Roman tiles, arranged herring-bone fashion, as if they had been used in the wall of some earlier (probably Saxon) building on the spot. They are now tightly packed in a case, exactly as they were discovered, for their better protection against relic hunters, whose ideas of property, when it happens to be of a portable kind, are a constant source of anxiety to the vergers.

Our progress along the north wall is here interrupted by the projecting transept, which touches the wooden fence separating the Cathedral from private property. Neither the north end of this transept, nor the north side of the “Lady Chapel,” is to be seen from the exterior. It may be mentioned, however, that the windows on the east and west sides of the north transept are extremely simple compared with that in the end of the same transept or with those in the south arm; and that the north side of the “Lady Chapel” differs slightly from the south in the disposition of the windows. Here the largest (a fine example of modern work) is in the easternmost bay, the other two bays being lighted by simple lancets, whereas on the opposite side the largest window occupies the central bay, with a lancet in the bays on either side of it.

Before entering the church, it may be well to walk once more along the east front to see the outside of the new Harvard window in the chapel below the north transept, which stands out in marked contrast to the older work around it. It may also be noticed that while the windows in the choir clerestory are all plain lancets, like those in the restored nave, there is a considerable difference in the glazing. In the choir we have an ornamental pattern of Mr. Gwilt’s invention. In the nave Sir Arthur Blomfield has preferred small square panes of glass, as more in character with the lancet type of window, and the other Early English work, which he has so well reproduced.