1 Bony, J., The English Decorated Style (1979), pp. 41–42 Google Scholar.

2 Lindley, P. G., ‘The Monastic Cathedral at Ely, c. 1320 to c. 1350’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1985), chapter 2Google Scholar.

3 Chapman, F. R., Sacrist Rolls of Ely, II (Cambridge, 1907), 97–98 Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., II, 122 and 156.

5 It was already leaking in the fourteenth century.

6 U(niversity) L(ibrary) C(ambridge), MS EDC 2/1/2, p. 247.

7 ULC MS EDC 2/1/2, pp. 271-72.

8 For Grumbold, Robert, see Colvin, H. M., A Biographical Dictionary of British Architects 1600-1840 (1978), pp. 367-68Google Scholar. For the restoration of the north transept, see Cocke, T., ‘The Architectural History of Ely Cathedral from 1540-1840’, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions, 2 (1979), 71–77 Google Scholar. For the 1709 order, see ULC MS EDC 2/1/2, p. 279.

9 ULC MS EDC 2/1/4, P. 189.

10 ULC MS EDC 2/1/4, P. 196.

11 Willis, Browne, A Survey of the Cathedrals of Lincoln, Ely, Oxford and Peterborough (London, 1730)Google Scholar, between pages 3 3 2 and 3 3 3; Bentham, J., The History and Antiquities of the Cathedral and Conventual Church of Ely (Cambridge, 1771). pl. XLII Google Scholar.

12 It was drawn by John Heins and engraved by Peter Spendelowe Lambourne (1722-74), who together were responsible for many of the plates in Bentham’s History. In 1759, Bentham wrote to A. C. Ducarel, who paid for plate IV ‘The Conventual Church’ (the Infirmary), drawn by Essex and engraved by Perry: ‘I have but one Engraver employed on my Plates. . . they are all so full of work in London’ (ULC MS EDR D/9/9). For the mistaken identity of the Infirmary as the Anglo-Saxon church, see Cocke, T., ‘The “Old Conventual Church” at Ely: A False Trail in Romanesque Studies?’, in Art and Patronage in the English Romanesque, ed. Macready, S. and Thompson, F. H., Society of Antiquaries Occasional Papers (N.S.) VIII (1986), 77–86 Google Scholar. As a footnote to Dr Cocke’s paper, it might be noted that Essex had doubts about ‘Bentham’s theory’ for the Infirmary, expressed in BL MS Add 6764 fols 11-12, where he doubts whether the architecture was Saxon or Norman ‘or whether it might not have been (re)built for the use of the infirmary after the present Cathedral was made fit for use’. In the MS (re) is crossed out. The reason why Bentham’s plate IV had its caption altered from 970 to 673 is revealed in a letter from Bentham to Dean Lyttelton of 17 April 1758 (BL MS Stowe 754 fols 14-15). Lyttelton had suggested ‘with great probability’ that the pillars and arches now remaining were the original ones of the church built by St Etheldreda and that Abbot Brithnoth was only the repairer or restorer, an idea which Bentham accepted. On the subject of Anglo-Saxon architecture, see Hunter, M. C. W., ‘The Study of Anglo-Saxon architecture since 1770’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 66 (1975-76), 129-39Google Scholar.

13 In a photograph reproduced in Moore’s, P. Three Restorations of Ely Cathedral (Ely, 1973)Google Scholar, there appears to be some evidence that the pinnacles had been started. The same photograph can be seen in Cocke, T. H., ‘James Essex, Cathedral Restorer’, Architectural History, 18 (1975), 12–22 (fig. 9a) and Fig. 6 aboveCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 ULC MS EDC 4/5/17a. Essex urges ‘As nothing but a general substantial repair of this lantern can prevent its ruin, it would be the greatest imprudence and extravagance to enter upon a partial one’. Essex was paid 12 guineas for his report (ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1w).

15 The main corner posts of the lantern do not seem to have been extensively restored in the eighteenth century, and work on the great raking shores concentrated mainly on their bases.

16 Hewett, C. A., English Historic Carpentry (London, 1980), pp. 161-62Google Scholar.

17 ULC MS Add 2960, fol. 46.

18 ULC MS Add 2960, fol. 47V. Work had started in November 1758 when Essex ordered scaffolding (ULC MS EDC4/6/8/1W).

19 Frew, J. M., ‘Richard Gough, James Wyatt, and Late 18th-Century Preservation’, Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, XXXVIII (1979), 366-74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Idem., ‘The “Destroyer” Vindicated? James Wyatt and the Restoration of Henry VII’s Chapel, Westminster Abbey’, Journal of the British Archaeological Association, CXXXIV (1981), 100-06.

20 Cocke, ‘Essex’, 16 ff.

21 ULC MS Add 2960, fol. 48.

22 For the context, see also Pevsner, N., ‘Scrape and Anti-Scrape’, in The Future of the Past, ed. Fawcett, J. (London, 1976) pp. 35–53 Google Scholar. Goodwin, Dean Harvey, Peacock’s successor at Ely states of the restoration in Ely Gossip (Ely, 1892), p. 22 Google Scholar, ‘In fact there was no question as to the safe condition of the structure; the problem was rather to reproduce the appearance presented by the Lantern as completed by Alan of Walsingham’ (though some of the lantern windows had been restored in 1820). For a list of donors to the restoration, see ULC MS EDC 4/7/1.

23 In the Ecclesiologist of 1842, p. 70, ‘to restore’ is defined as ‘to revive the original appearance . . . lost by decay, accident or ill-judged alteration’.

24 Frew, ‘Richard Gough, James Wyatt’, p. 367, n. 10. See also J. Fawcett, ‘A Restoration Tragedy: Cathedrals in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries’, in The Future of the Past, pp. 75-115.

25 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/ij and Ecclesiologist, 20 (1859), p. 329. For the plan of restoration, see also Goodwin, p. 24.

26 Ecclesiologist, 20 (1859), opposite p. 328. Dean Goodwin’s comment that ‘it was of no value whatsoever as an architectural design’ (Gossip, p. 21) is demonstrably unjust.

27 Ecclesiologist, 20 (1859), 328-30.

28 Ecclesiologist, 20 (1859), 388-89. The much respected amateur painter, Styleman le Strange, also thought that the lantern was a later addition (Goodwin, Gossip, pp. 22-23). Was he, perhaps, the writer in the Ecdesiologist?

29 Ecclesiologist, 20 (1859), 389; see also Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 75-77, for a careful discussion of the location of John of Gloucester’s bells.

30 Ecclesiologist, 20(1859), 389.

31 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 212.

32 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 402. In 1860, Scott himself was keeping an open mind about whether the lantern might have had a spire (Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 25); when he examined the lantern roof, however, he was able to prove, from an examination of the principal rafters, that no spire had ever been built or intended (Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 77-78).

33 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1t.

34 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 24.

35 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 26-28.

36 ULCMSEDC4/6/8/1f.

37 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 27 and 77-78.

38 Scott here echoes Pugin’s, A. W. N. ideas in The True Principles of Pointed or Christian Architecture (London, 1841), pp. 1–2 Google Scholar, where it is stated that ‘the architects of the Middle Ages were the first who turned the natural properties of the various materials to their full account’ and ‘even the construction itself should vary with the material employed, and the designs should be adapted to the material in which they are executed’. Needless to say, this axiom is fundamentally at odds with medieval thinking.

39 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 25. Correspondence on the pinnacles, to which Scott evidently devoted a good deal of thought, between himself, R. R. Rowe (who supervised work for him) and the Dean, is found in ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/11, i-viii.

40 ULC MS EDC 4/7/3, printed in Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 26-28.

41 Ecclesiologist, 21 (1860), 402.

42 For this tomb see Lindley, P. G., ‘The Tomb of Bishop William de Luda: An Architectural Model at Ely Cathedral’, Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society, LXXIII (1984), 75–87 Google Scholar. The tomb, of course, had an ‘afterlife’ as an architectural model in the eighteenth century and was regularly used by Essex, as, for instance, the model for the gates at Strawberry Hill, for which see Lewis, W. S., ‘The Genesis of Strawberry Hill’, Metropolitan Museum Studies (1934-36), 86 Google Scholar, and Clark, K., The Gothic Revival (3rd edn, 1978), 64 note 3Google Scholar.

43 Lindley, ‘Ely’, chapters 2 to 5.

44 Stewart, D.J., On the Architectural History of Ely Cathedral (London, 1868), p. 127 Google Scholar, remarks that ‘Mr Essex showed great professional skill, and unusual respect for the workmanship of an earlier period’. Dr Cocke has also done a great deal to vindicate Essex’s reputation: see, most recently, The Ingenious Mr Essex, Architect, catalogue of an exhibition in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, 1984.

45 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1c, p. 4; Ecclesiologist, 23 (1862), 21. The carpentry work is by Freeman’s of Ely.

46 ULC MS EDC 2/1/8, p. 4. See also Ecclesiologist, 24(1863), 29-31 (for the January 1863 agreement) and 161-62 (for that of May 1863). See ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1d and 4/6/8/1e, pp. 1-2.

47 ULC MS EDC 2/1/8, pp. 18 and 44.

48 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1f.

49 By William Wailes.

50 He first made the offer in 1864 or 1865 (ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1f, p. 8). It was expected to cost about £500 (ULC MSEDC4/6/8/1g,p. 3).

51 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/1 a, p. 3 (a guide dating from 1851). Dean Peacock had been prepared to depart from the original polychromy, according to the 1859 Restoration Committee Report, but in 1850 it had still been intended to restore the paintwork on its original lines (Ecclesiologist, 11 (1850), 158). Rowe, R. R., ‘The Octagon and Lantern of Ely Cathedral’, Royal Institute of British Architects Sessional Papers, 1 (1875-76), 75 Google Scholar, notes that the central boss of the lantern was recut in 1874.

52 The earliest undoubtedly the 1772 ‘mending and cleaning’ of the old monuments, including Bishop West’s chapel by Kempton, under Bentham’s direction (ULC MS Add 2960 fols 76-76^v). For an unfavourable verdict on the De Luda tomb restoration, see James’s, M. R. trenchant comments in Cox, M., M. R.James (Oxford, 1986), 51 Google Scholar.

53 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/11 for the text of Mr Hudson’s Report. G. E. Street stated that the octagon was painted to imitate masonry, but gave no details of the scheme.

54 Ecclesiologist, II (1850), 158.

55 Bony, Decorated Style, 50-52.

56 ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/2.

57 ULC MS EDC 4/5/263 records the ceremonial address to Gambier Parry ordered on 14 June 1875 (see also ULC MS EDC 2/1/8, p. 195.

58 Goodwin, Gossip, 62-65.

59 Moore, p. 14. And cf. ULC MS EDC 2/1/8, p. 247.

60 ULC MS EDC 2/1/8, p. 249. ULC MS EDC 4/6/8/10 for the dedication programme.

61 Stewart, Ely, p. 127.

62 Browne Willis, pp. 334-35.

63 ULC MS Add 2960, fols 46-47.

64 For the importance of the glazing schemes of the east window, and their place in the history of the relocation of the choir, see S. F. Baylis, ‘Pearson and the glazing of the east window of Ely Cathedral’ (in preparation).

65 ULC MS Add 2960, fols 49^v-50.

66 For these copies, now in the Ely Chapter Library, see the author’s handlist. For the story of their purchase, see ULC Ely Chapter MS 23 A/1/1-12. Bentham closely follows arguments in favour of the removal (ULC MS Add 2957, fols 112-14).

67 ULC MS Add 2960, fol. 51.

68 ULC MS Add 2960, fol. 53. The original letter is in BL MS Stowe 754, fol. 41. Dean Lyttelton appears to have had some influence on the decision to open a subscription, and indeed, seems to have visited Ely in Spring 1758, before the plan for moving the choir gathered momentum; as Bishop of Carlisle, he sent a plan for the removal of the choir, acknowledged in the agreement of 25 November 1768 (see below, n. 73) where it is agreed inter alia ‘that a letter be written to the Bishop of Carlisle . . . expressing . . . thankful Acknowledgements to his Lordship and Mr Pitt, with reasons answer’d, why it is not possible to execute certain parts of the Plan which they were pleas’d to favour (the Dean and Chapter) with’. For a brief study of Lyttelton’s importance, see Cocke, T., ‘Rediscovery of the Romanesque’, in English Romanesque Art, Exhibition Catalogue 1984, p. 362 Google Scholar.

69 ULC MS EDC 2/1/4, p. 220.

70 ULCMS Add 2957, pp. 113-16.

71 ULCMS Add 2957, p. 117.

72 ULC MS EDC 2/1/4, P. 256, et seq.

73 ULC MS EDC 4/5/42.

74 Stewart, D. R., ‘James Essex’, Architectural Review, 108 (1950), 317-21Google Scholar, figs 7 and 8, and for the Fitzwilliam drawings, see Cocke, Ingenious Mr Essex, pp. 51-53.

75 Lindley, ‘Ely’, Appendix B, viii-ix.

76 I am indebted to S. F. Baylis for this information.

77 Lindley, ‘Ely’, Appendix B, ix.

78 Essex’s sketches of the Exeter pulpitum are contained in BL MS Add 6760.

79 ULC MS Add 2960, fols 75-76. Even after work had started, it was still undecided where the organ was to be situated in August 1769.

80 ULC MS EDC4/6/8/1W.

81 But see also Essex’s reference in a letter of 14 June 1759 to an architect (unnamed) who opposed the removal in BL MS Add 5842 pp. 350-51. For the significance of Bentham’s work, see Frew, J. M., ‘James Bentham’s “History of Ely Cathedral”: a forgotten classic of the early Gothic Revival’, Art Bulletin, 62 (1980), 290-93CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Stevenson, W., A Supplement to the First Edition of Mr Bentham’s History and Antiquities of the Cathedral and Conventual Church of Ely (Norwich, 1817)Google Scholar, ‘Memoirs of the Life of James Bentham M. A.’, pp. 1-20 and DNB s.v. From 1783 until his death in 1794, Bentham was making collections of material for his intended Ancient Architecture of this Kingdom, which, however, ‘His various avocations prevented him from arranging’ (Stevenson, p. 19).

82 Cobb, G., The Forgotten Centuries (London, 1980), p. 84, n. 37Google Scholar, argues that Wyatt, not Essex, was responsible for the screen’s destruction, but this is based on a misreading of Essex’s notes and of Wyatt’s suggestion that Essex’s screen should be moved westwards up to the crossing. The plan in Bentham’s History, Plate XL, from 1770, does not show the Anglo-Norman pulpitum. For a tentative reconstruction of the choir screen, based on Essex’s sketches prior to his demolition of it, see Hope, W. H. StJ., ‘Quire Screens in English Churches with special reference to the Twelfth-Century Quire Screen formerly in the Cathedral Church of Ely’, Archaeologia, 68 (1916-17), 43–110 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Atkinson, T. D., in the Victoria County History, Cambridge and the Isle of Ely, IV (London, 1967), 66–67 Google Scholar, proposes some minor amendments. Further information on the screen, from notes by Essex, is given in Stevenson, Supplement, Addenda, pp. 3-5.

83 For the paintings, and the fourteenth-century choir arrangement, see Lindley, P., ‘The Imagery of the Octagon at Ely’. Journal of the British Archaeological Association, CXXXIX (1986), 75–99 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84 ULC MS EDC 4/5/42. It is possible that Essex had, in fact, given the Octagon interior a coat of drab paint when he restored it, as the Octagon’s arrangement is here cited as an example.

85 Is there, perhaps, a defensive note in Bentham’s long passage (History, 285-86) on the removal of the choir-stalls into the presbytery? Essex had certainly encountered some opposition from the Dean to the removal of the choir, but on grounds of expense rather than from aesthetic or antiquarian considerations. See BL, MS Add 5842, P- 349.

86 On this context, see Lindley, ‘Ely’, Appendix B, xi, and literature there cited.

87 For Willis, see Pevsner, N., Some Architectural Writers of the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1972), chapter 8Google Scholar.

88 See above, n. 82.

89 Moore, Three Restorations, p. 12, quoting Chapter Act Book 25 November 1846.

90 Ecclesiologist, 8 (1847), 58-59. Hewett, J. W., A Brief History and Description of. . . Ely (Ely, 1848), p. 11 Google Scholar, however, suggested the return of the choir to underneath the Octagon.

91 Ecclesiologist, 8 (1847), 117.

92 Scott, G. G., Personal and Professional Recollections (London, 1879), p. 88 Google Scholar.

93 J. Bacon, ‘A Record of the Restorations . . . 1818-71’, MS in Ely Chapter Library, microfilmed as ULC Ely Chapter MS 37, 96-99. See also ULC MS EDC 2/1/7, pp. 32–33. Bacon describes Essex’s screen as ‘indifferent in design and incorrect in its imitation of the Gothic’, a view which conveniently illustrates contemporary prejudices.

94 Bacon, 98-99. See also Ecclesiologist, 6 (1846), 37-38, where the restoration of the Purbeck marble piers is remarked upon. Bishop Northwold’s Presbytery was also extensively restored.

95 ULC MS EDC 4/10/2 and EDC 2/1/7, p. 95.

96 Catalogue of the Drawings Collection of the Royal Institute of British Architects, The Scott Family, ed. Heseltine, J. (London, 1981), pp. 29–30 Google Scholar.

97 Bacon, pp. 113–17. According to the Ecclesiologist, 10 (1849), 18, quoting the Dean and Chapter’s report, the open screen and new sub-stalls were to be finished by May 1851, at a cost of over £4,200.

98 ULC MS EDC 4/10/2. The organ was further enlarged in 1867.

99 Bacon, pp. 99-100. Ecclesiologist, 11 (1850), 156.

100 Scott, Recollections, 282.

101 Ecclesiologist, 14(1853), 1. But this was, as Scott reminds us (Recollections, 281), the first case in which an open screen had been adopted in an English cathedral for such a position. See also Scott’s drawings in the Victoria and Albert Museum, Dept of Prints and Drawings DD 16.

102 Restorations Statement, August 1851, p.1. By 1851, the stalls had been cleaned of the drab paint with which they had been covered, and work was also proceeding on the restoration of the tomb-monuments.

103 ULC MS EDC 2/1/8, pp. 13, 35 and 57. With the exception of Philip’s Nativity, all the reliefs are by Abeloos of Louvain.

104 Ecclesiologist, 14 (1853), 2. Some of the canopies, fragments of the return sections, and some few pieces of Essex’s work are to be found in the south triforium of the presbytery. For details of the alterations, see Bacon, pp. 105-11 and 127 ff. Scott’s contract drawing for the rearrangement of the choir is in the RIBA Library (see above, n. 96).

105 Ecclesiologist, 14(1853), 370.

106 Bacon, p. 130.

107 It was Dean Peacock who first suggested to Scott that he should visit French cathedrals such as Amiens, which Scott, astonishingly, had not visited before his appointment at Ely.

108 Jordan, W.J., ‘Sir George Gilbert Scott R. A., Surveyor to Westminster Abbey 1849-1878’, Architectural History, 23 (1980), 60–85 (p. 66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; a sole exception being the tomb of Philippa of Hainault, for which Scott prepared a restoration model, made by Mr Cundy, the Abbey mason. It is illustrated by Noppen, J. G., ‘A Tomb and Effigy by Hennequin of Liege’, Burlington Magazine, 59 (1931), 114-17Google Scholar, Plate C). For Scott’s restoration of monuments at Ely, see Bacon, pp. 111–13 and 118-21.

109 Bacon, pp. 126 ff gives details of these much-neglected works and of other fittings not designed by Scott. For the most recent reassessment of Scott as a cathedral restorer, see Bower, E. Dykes, ‘The Restoration of the Cathedrals’, in Sir George Gilbert Scott, Exhibition Catalogue, Victoria and Albert Museum, 1978 Google Scholar.

110 See G. Stamp’s good biographical account of Scott in The Scott Family, pp. 13-16.