Gents Mag 1840 part 2 p.155

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	Gentleman's Magazine 1840 part 2 p.155
book review   History and Description of Carlisle Cathedral
	History and Description of Carlisle Cathedral Book review. Architectural Illustrations. - History and Description of Carlisle Cathedral. By R. W. Billings, 4to. 1840. An attempt to define the Geometric proportions of Gothic Architecture, as illustrated by the Cathedrals of Carlisle and Worcester. By R. W. Billings. MR. BILLINGS' very excellent series of illustrations of the unfinished, mutilated, and decayed cathedral of Carlisle, is now brought to a conclusion, and completed by the addition of a letter-press description of the plates. The representations of the church are most copious. In the words of the author, "the comparatively unknown church of St. Mary at Carlisle has now a more extended architectural survey published than any other cathedral in Britain; by which means the whole mass of the building might be rebuilt." This cathedral boasts a choir, which, in point of architectural effect, is perhaps unrivalled in this country. The eastern window is probably the most beautiful example of the flowing tracery of the 14th century in existence. The author has drawn a very minute and accurate comparison between this splendid example and the celebrated west window of York Minster. The dates of the two are nearly coeval; - that at Carlisle being erected shortly after 1292, and the York specimen between 1291 and 1330. Although the Carlisle window is, so far as respects a great portion of the interior face of the tracery, in an unfinished state, it is manifestly superior in point of design to its better known and more admired contemporary. The laborious investigation which Mr. Billings made of this window is evinced by his elevation of the tracery, in which the stones and their joints are distinctly marked out and numbered. The plates of the choir exhibit a display of architecture so beautiful, that the spectator cannot help viewing it with a feeling of regret when he finds that it is the only portion of the structure which has been completed in this exquisite style; and of indignation when he sees that the legal guardians of the pile are so blind to its merits as to suffer it to fall into ruin by almost total neglect. The gable over the principal eastern window was almost unique in its ornaments. The parapet in its original state was crocketed and ornamented with no less than nine crosses, of which one was placed on the apex, and the other eight on the side of the raking parapet. All the crosses have been destroyed; more, perhaps, from the effects of time than the hands of fanaticism; but one is preserved in the cathedral, and from which Mr. Billings is enabled to make an elevation in a restored state. The stalls and woodwork of the
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