Before any detailed consideration of the architecture of the cathedral, it is well to be clear as to the various dates of the chief parts. But it must here be remembered that practically in every instance the now existing portions replaced still earlier structures on the same site. Mention has been made already of the changes from the original building to the one commenced in the eleventh century. In 1079 Bishop Walkelin laid the foundations of a great Norman church, of which the transepts, the outer face of the south nave wall, the core of the nave itself, the crypts, and a portion of the base of the west front are still existing. Walkelin’s work was completed in fourteen years, just before the end of 1093. The tower fell in 1107, but was rebuilt soon afterwards in the form which we now see it. Bishop de Lucy’s work, which came next in date (1189-1204), includes the Chapel of the Guardian Angels, flanking the Lady Chapel, at the north-east end of the cathedral, and the corresponding chapel on the south-east, which afterwards became the chantry of Bishop Langton. The piers of the presbytery probably date from about 1320. The west front was rebuilt in Edingdon’s time (1345-1366), and a small part of the reconstruction of the nave, the first two bays of the north aisle, and a bay of the south are generally attributed to him. The great re-modelling of the nave, the outer walls of the presbytery, and the continuation of the Lady Chapel range in date of completion from the end of the fourteenth to the sixteenth century. So much, however, of each period has been altered, and often modified almost beyond recognition by later additions, that it is impossible to make more than a rough guess at the age of the various portions. The work of Wykeham and his successors is so important that it must be left until we reach it in its proper place.

The ground covered by the actual building is one and a half acres in extent. The close is fine and extensive, and is surrounded by a high and stout wall which marks the limits of the old Benedictine monastery. The houses within the close are of widely different dates, from the Early English period to recent years. They comprise the official residences of the dean and the canons, together with some private houses. The changes made from time to time in the distribution of the ground have involved the disappearance of the old priory buildings, and it is not possible to trace with certainty their original form. The laying out of the close has concealed the ground plan of the cloisters which once adjoined the cathedral. What is now called by the name is the passage between the south transept and the former chapter-house, which was pulled down in 1570 by the destructive Bishop Horne, in order, it is said, that the lead in the roof might be sold. Five extremely fine Early Norman arches which were once part of the chapter-house still remain, and may be seen in a line with the end of the slype, beyond the south transept. Some traces of small arches on what is now the extreme outer wall of the transept mark where arcading once ran along the inner wall of the chapter-house. No vestige of the roof remains. The “slype” is a passage which was cut through the southern buttress by Bishop Curle, to put a stop to the constant use of the nave and south aisle as a thoroughfare by the townspeople.

In the angle of an old extension of the chapter-house south wall are traces of the dormitory and infirmary which formerly stood there. The Early English doorway with Purbeck marble shafts seems to have led to this dormitory. To the south of this is the deanery or prior’s hall, the acute external arches, which date from the reign of Henry III., forming a vestibule with a southern aspect, while above are some narrow lancet-windows. Although the original portion of this hall dates from the fifteenth century, it was considerably altered in the seventeenth, during the second Charles’s reign. This king himself sometimes stayed at the deanery, where Philip of Spain lodged for one night before his marriage. Over a wooden building, which now serves as the dean’s stables, is an ornamental timber roof of late thirteenth-century work, which was once part of the old pilgrims’ or strangers’ hall originally standing in this part of the close for the benefit of pilgrims to the shrine of S. Swithun.

In the south wall of the cathedral, close to the west front, there is a doorway which is reported to have led to the chapel and charnel-house mentioned by Leland. “S. Swithin, now called Trinity,” he says, “stands on the south side of the town, and there is a chapelle with a carnarie at the west end of it.” S. Swithin is, of course, the cathedral itself. Leland’s other carnary, which must not be confused with this, was attached to a chapel “on the north side of S. Mary Abbey church at Winchester, in an area thereby, on which men entre by a certen steppes. One Inkepenne, a gentilman that berith in his shield a scheker sylver and sables, was founder of it. There be three tumbes of marble of prestes custodes of the chapelle.”

Among the old houses which have vanished from the close is one in which Charles II. in vain requested Bishop Ken to allow Nell Gwynne to lodge; and one which was erected for her and not pulled down until this century. The cathedral precincts, however, still contain on the southern side several buildings well worthy of notice. A picturesque house yet standing is that which was known by the name of Cheyney Court. It now serves as a porter’s lodge, and stands by the wooden-doored gateway which opens into Kingsgate Street. The doors are supposed to have come down to us from the thirteenth century. Previously this lodge was the courthouse of the Soke of Winchester, and the centre of the episcopal jurisdiction here. The old timbered front, with its barge-boards, was in 1886 concealed behind a rough-cast cement coating, but in that year this was fortunately stripped away, and the present charming aspect revealed to the eye.

The Exterior. It would be difficult to deny that the exterior of Winchester Cathedral is disappointing, and few are likely to echo the opinion of an over-zealous admirer of the building who said that the longer one looks at it the more one feels the low central tower to be the only kind that would suit the huge proportions of the building. On the contrary, it may be said that it is impossible to look at Winchester without a feeling of regret that the superb mass of the great fabric, the largest mediaeval church in England since the destruction of old S. Paul’s, is not crowned by a loftier central tower. There is a legend to the effect that there were seven towers in the original design the central one, two at the west end, and one at each angle of the transepts; and this seems to be supported by the solid character of some of the piers in the transepts. Yet, despite the rather ungraceful outline of the whole building, when its mere size is realised, it gradually asserts its importance and incontrovertibly proves its right to be considered one of the very finest structures in England.

It will not be out of place to quote a short criticism which sums up the external qualities of the cathedral in a concise way: “With the exception of portions of the late work in the presbytery, the exterior of Winchester is severe in treatment, and plain wall-space plays an important part in the design. Plain parapets and simply treated pinnacles characterise the work of the nave. The Norman transepts are externally but little altered, except by the insertion of Decorated windows to give more light to the altars in their eastern aisles; and De Lucy’s work eastwards is, compared with some work of its date, simple in the extreme. Rather more elaboration was bestowed on the design of the new eastern bay of the Lady Chapel by Prior Silkstede and Bishop Courtenay; but, taken as a whole, Winchester has one of the simplest exteriors for its size and importance in the country” ("Winchester Cathedral” in The Builder for October 1892).

The ground-plan of Winchester Cathedral is in the form of a plain Latin cross, hardly broken in its outline save by the Perpendicular prolongation of the Lady Chapel at the east end. But, simple as is the plan, “the great length of the church” (to use the words of Fergusson) “is pleasingly broken ... by the bold projection of its transepts, which here extend, as usual in England, three bays beyond the aisles, their section being the same width as that of the nave.” The width of the nave with the aisles is 88 feet, while the transepts measure, from east to west, 81 feet. The total length has already been given as 556, and the width from north to south across the transepts is 230 feet. The altitude of the walls is 75 feet, which is a foot less than at Peterborough, though three more than at Ely.

The West Front, the work of Bishop Edingdon, has been roughly handled by its critics, though Britton calls it a fine specimen of Perpendicular architecture. The original Norman work demolished by Edingdon was, as excavations have proved, forty feet in advance of the present façade. To judge by accounts of the destroyed portions, the west front in its earlier state must have been far more imposing than it is at present, for not only is it now commonplace in mass, but even the detail has no particular charm to atone for the change. The whole of this work appears so thoroughly Perpendicular in character that it has been questioned whether at such an early date as that to which it is assigned the style can have been so far developed. Woodward, indeed, though attributing to Edingdon the walls and the principal part of the west end, declares the tracery, the fronts of the porches, and much of the panelling to be later; but a comparison of Winchester with another church undoubtedly built by this bishop, at his native town of Edingdon, in Wiltshire, supports the tradition which credits him with its erection. Besides this evidence, we have additional proof in the fact that he left by his will certain property to be devoted to the completion of the nave. Late though his work may appear at first sight, yet when it is closely examined and compared with Wykeham’s work the difference is very apparent.

The whole western façade with its three bays is wanting in greatness, and its effect may be said to be that of a large parish church rather than a cathedral. Not only do we miss the western towers which are so often the most striking feature of an English west front, but the screen which masks the lower storey lacks the richness which distinguishes a somewhat similar feature at Exeter. The curiously poor appearance, notwithstanding its huge size, of the great west window is perhaps chiefly responsible for the want of dignity in the whole; nor is there, to redeem this, any delicate fancy in the tracery. The “merest stone grating” Willis terms the window, and though from so warm a panegyrist of the church this seems a severe criticism, no one can traverse his opinion.

By way of further proof that the west front was Edingdon’s work, Willis points out that, while in Wykeham’s panels the masonry itself is carefully finished, and the same stones used for the ground of the panel and its mouldings, in Edingdon’s work the monials and tracery alone exhibit good masonry, the panels being filled with rough ashlar. By other tests, too technical to quote here, the same critic makes it clear that the west front, with two compartments of the nave on the north and one to the south, must be attributed to Edingdon, though he probably did not finish the gable and turrets, which seem to be the work of Wykeham. The present state shows a gable rising in the centre, flanked by octagonal pinnacle turrets. On the apex of this gable is a canopied finial containing a niche wherein now stands a figure of William of Wykeham, the original statue, which was supposed to represent S. Swithun, having been removed to the feretory when the west front was restored in 1860 at a cost of L3000. The triangle of the gable is filled with tracery, the lower part of the central panels in which serve as a smaller square-headed six-light window above the parapet which crosses at the head of the great nine-light window. Buttresses assist in supporting the two towers, and lesser ones project to hide the sides of the porch, which, pierced by three doorways and crowned by a parapet, extends along the whole lower storey, across the nave and both aisles. Above the screen the pitched roofs of aisles may be seen. The bays containing the side windows, of four lights each, accord in style with the large central one, having also wall tracery in panels over the comparatively small surface of unpierced wall. The screen itself has three deeply-recessed portals with pointed arches, and a large canopied empty niche on each side of the main entrance.

The central doorway is divided by a clustered shaft, where from spring two cinquefoil arches. The recessed portal has a groined roof, with an arcade of cusped arches on the main west wall, broken by the doorways which give admission to the nave. A pierced balcony of simple design crowns the whole of the screen and forms a gallery which is said to have been used for bestowing episcopal benedictions to the people outside the cathedral on festival days.

The excavations which brought to light the old foundations of the original west front showed “a wall of 128 feet from north to south, and 12 feet thick, with returns at each end of the same thickness 60 feet in length. At their eastern ends the walls again turn in at right angles and meet the present side aisles at 17 feet from each corner. Within the parallelogram thus partially traced two other walls run from east to west at a distance of 36 feet from each other.” In a garden adjoining the west end of the cathedral at the time when these observations were made, part of the south-west angle of the walls still remained. Indications of the western towers were apparent; and Willis suggests that they were probably either unfinished, or in a threatening condition, so that Edingdon demolished them; even as at Gloucester the western towers of the cathedral were removed, and the façade was replaced by a perpendicular west front at the beginning of the fifteenth century.

The original west front may very probably have been similar to that of Lincoln Cathedral, “unornamental,” says a writer in Architecture, “save for some interlacing arches and dwarf blind arcades, and with no windows to reflect the setting sun, or to light the cavernous interior.”

The two westernmost bays of the North side are due to Edingdon, and we get here well contrasted the work of Edingdon and of Wykeham. In Willis’s plan the difference can be clearly seen. The two windows to the right are heavier, lower, and broader, and display much deeper exterior mouldings, with “a most cavernous and gloomy appearance,” while the window on the left hand is much narrower and lighter. The left-hand buttress is like the others on the north side of the church, whereas the other three are different from it and from one another, that on the extreme right, together with its pinnacle, being apparently just as Edingdon left it. The pinnacles and upper set-off of the two centre buttresses in the figure were added by Wykeham to Edingdon’s underwork. The mouldings of Wykeham’s windows are more elaborate than those of Edingdon’s, where the tracery is similar to that of the west window. Of the bays on the north side the nine next to Edingdon’s two, together with the three beyond the northern transept, are Wykeham’s work, as are the three bays beyond the transept on the southern side and the extension of the Lady Chapel. Edingdon claims, beside what has been already mentioned, one bay on the south, next the west front. De Lucy’s work consists of the three easterly bays on either side, and part of the Lady Chapel exterior. The rest of the bays are Norman, and the prevailing note is simplicity, not to say rudeness. The South side of the nave is almost devoid of decoration, the bays being merely divided by flat buttresses which do not reach below the bottoms of the aisle windows. The eleven windows in the clerestory above are all alike, divided only by flat buttresses. Aisle and clerestory both show a plain parapet and corbels. The bold buttresses on the north side, with their panelled and crocketted pinnacles, save it from the monotony of the south side, which, however, was once greatly concealed by cloisters and convent buildings, and is even now far more enclosed than the northern side.

The low Central Tower, the coping of which is only 35 feet above the ridge of the transept roof, is Norman, though, as explained before, of later date than the transepts. It is of a simple square form, 150 feet high by 50 wide, and is divided by a string course into two storeys, the lower of which is plain with small round-headed windows; the larger upper storey has on each side three narrow round-headed windows, which form a kind of arcade round the upper part of the tower, surmounted by a zig-zag string course. At the angles are engaged shafts. The massive manner in which the tower was rebuilt in the eleventh century can be better appreciated from within, when we come to the piers which support it. The building has been said to prove that the Normans of the period were “still bad masons and imperfectly acquainted with the principles of construction,” the masses of masonry employed showing an enormous waste of both labour and materials. But the architects at any rate gained their end, since the tower has stood to the present day. The strength of the original Norman work, indeed, is so great that for all the 250 feet of nave no flying-buttresses were required to support the later vaulting.

The gables of the Transepts are not so high as those of the nave, but the clerestory parapets are on the same level. The side aisles are much lower than those in the nave or the presbytery. The parapets are plain, over a series of small arches supported by corbels; except that in the eastern aisle of the south transept the parapet rests on plain corbels, and above the western clerestory of the other transept is a cornice with Perpendicular bosses. In this clerestory, again, the buttresses are Perpendicular, whereas otherwise throughout the transepts they are flat Norman. Over the eastern aisle of the north there is no cornice or corbel; “the parapet,” says Woodward, “with no more than a water-table under it, is carried across the gable of the north transept, so as to form an alura above the buttress, in front of the circular window there.” The Perpendicular rose-window in the northern gable cannot now be seen from the interior, being hidden by the transept ceiling, but in the illustration from Britton, on page 59, it is visible. The corresponding gable on the south shows panelling with interlacing Norman arches, but there are only two narrow lights. Many symptoms show that square towers were to have been erected flanking the transept gables. There is an unfinished turret at the north-east corner of the north transept, while the springing of an arcade and the generally incomplete appearance prove that a side tower was intended. The other three extreme angles of the transepts also bear out this view. The width from east to west of the transepts is enormous as compared with the height of the central tower above. It rather looks from the presence (barely perceptible from outside) of the westernmost windows of the presbytery aisles as if those who carried on Wykeham’s work had meant to reduce this great width, and give more importance to the presbytery and retro-choir externally. It is certain, at any rate, that the Norman transepts narrowly escaped a complete transformation. That on the north side of the cathedral shows very considerable alterations, in the majority of its windows, from the old Norman pattern. A built-up doorway may be noticed under the first window from the west of this transept.

The exterior of the Presbytery has only three compartments on each side, but in each there are four lights in aisle and clerestory alike. The windows are of the Wykeham pattern, though probably a little later in date than his work. The buttresses, which rise above the aisle roof, culminate in square panelled pinnacles, surmounted by crocketted ogee canopies. From these buttresses spring graceful flying-buttresses, with pierced spandrels running to the clerestory walls. On the northern side the plain parapet has over it a pierced battlement.

The East End, as it now stands, is some 110 feet beyond the original Norman termination, and presents a square face, projecting with a flat parapet beyond the high gable over the actual east window. The Norman apse was demolished about 1320 in all probability, and the present polygonal end substituted for it. It seems that originally the aisles of the Norman presbytery continued round this apse, which was flanked by two small towers. The eastern chapel may have been dedicated to the Holy Trinity as at Canterbury, and probably extended as far as the western arch of the present Lady Chapel. The central gable of the old termination, rather acute in form, is richly decorated with panels and crocketting, and is crowned by a tabernacle wherein Bishop Fox is represented leaning on the pelican. “Three of the panels in the centre are pierced and glazed, forming a small square-headed window; and under it is a door opening upon an alura, behind a crenelated, panelled, and pierced parapet, over a cornice with bosses, at the base of the gable, and just above the east window” (Woodward). The Perpendicular east window has seven lights, and resembles, in the form of its head, Wykeham’s windows. A portrait bust of Fox has been discovered on the north corbel of the hood-mould of this window, and the flying-buttresses (which, as Willis pointed out, the jointing of the masonry proves to be later insertions into the clerestory walls) have the pelican carved on them. The whole gable is flanked by richly canopied octagonal turrets, on which the flying-buttresses abut. The lower part of the east window cannot be seen from below, being lost behind the roof of the chantry aisles.

The whole of the eastern arm of the cathedral is curiously mixed in style, furnishing examples of Early English, Decorated, and Perpendicular architecture. Beyond the main east gable just described projects a low Early English structure of three nearly equally high aisles, of which the central or Lady Chapel has received a further Perpendicular addition. There has been apparently a slight subsidence of the Early English walls, which has caused the irregular look of the arches in the interior of the southern retro-choir aisle (see page 69). Above the plain string-course of the retro-choir there is in each compartment, under a level parapet, an arcade of narrow pointed arches, four in number, the central couple of each set being pierced and glazed, so as to form pairs of lancet windows. The Langton and Guardian Angels’ chapels, which project not quite half as far as the Lady Chapel from the old eastern limit of the church, show a triple series of arcades, diminishing in size as they mount. The central arcade is much cut into on the eastern face by the large three-light windows of the lateral chapels. There is no parapet above the arcades. At the angles between these chapels and the retro-choir aisles are staircases enclosed in small octagonal turrets rising slightly above the adjoining parts with merely a plain parapet at the top.

The Lady Chapel has at the end and at each side a fine seven-light Perpendicular window, the heads of the lights below the transom being cinquefoiled, while above each window is a cornice supported by small arches resting on corbels; over all is a pierced battlement, which is also crenelated at the actual east end. Below the east window of the Lady Chapel, between the two great buttresses with mutilated canopies on the two lower of their three divisions, there is some blank panelling, consisting of four shallow-arched recesses with a pilaster down the centre, each arch uniting two minor ones with cinquefoil cusps at the head and crowned by a quatrefoil with a rosette in the middle. There were originally four heads at the ends of the corbels under these quatrefoils, but the southernmost is broken away. A similar arcade runs along the southern wall of the Lady Chapel, but there is none on the north side. The two main corbel-tables at the east end show the arms of England and France and the bishop’s device of three “torteaux.” Under these, at a short distance from the ground, are two smaller windows, which give light to the Lady Chapel crypt. The panelling dates from about 1490, and is due to Bishop Peter Courtenay.