King's College and its Chapel [antikvár]

THE BUILDING OF THE COLLEGEWhen King Henry VI founded King's College in 1441, it was to consist of a Rector and only twelve Scholars. Buildings for this small college were begun the same year, on a site to the north of the present Chapel. But King Henry's designs rapidly grew; by 1445 he was planning a college consisting of a Provost and seventy Scholars. For this he bought a new site to the south, where he planned a great court. The Chapel was to form its northern side, with east and west ranges closing up into its eastern and western bays, and the south range facing it (see the plan inside the front cover). Between the Chapel and the river was to stand a cloister, with a bell tower in the middle of its western side. The original buildings north of the Chapel were still only half completed; they were now roughly finished off in a makeshift manner, and work was begun on the new great court.King Henry laid the foundation stone of his new Chapel on 25 July 1446, and during the next fifteen years work on it went forward under the direction of his architect, the master mason Reginald Ely. The east range of the great court was also begun, but very little of it was built: little more than the fragment shown in the picture on page 8 (bottom). As the picture shows, the range would have blocked the lower half of the great window in the south-eastern bay of the Chapel. This bay was first faced with dressed stone and the lower half of the window was first opened and glazed in 1827.Work on the Chapel went forward more slowly after 1455, when the Wars of the Roses broke out. In 1461 King Henry was defeated in battle and deposed from the throne, and then the whole building was abandoned, unroofed and less than half completed: the King's great work, so splendidly begun, left to stand an unsightly fragment.White magnesian limestone was used during nearly the whole of this first period, contrasting in colour with the grey or sandy yellow limestones used in the later periods. The upper limit of the white magnesian limestone, still to be seen in the building today (and in the photographs opposite and on page 9 (bottom)), approximately marks the level which the work had reached when it was interrupted in 1461.Fifteen years later, in 1476, building began again, financed by private subscriptions. It gathered pace in 1480, when Edward IV made a generous gift; and Richard III also con/ tributed largely. By 1483 the five eastern bays had been built, and roofed with their outer roof of timber and lead by the master carpenter Martin Prentice. The architect in this second period was the master mason Simon Clerk of Bury St Edmunds.In 1485 King Richard was slain on Bosworth Field; and once again the work was inter/ rupted. It is probable that at this time the five eastern bays were temporarily closed off at their western end, and this part of the Chapel, though still unvaulted and open to the timbered roof, began to be used for worship. For nearly twenty/three years, little more was done. At last, in 1508, the third and final period of the building of the Chapel began. In that year King Henry VII set the work going once more on a grand scale, under the direction of its last and greatest architect, the master mason John Wastell. King Henry VII died in 1509; but he left instructions to his executors to see the Chapel completed. The shell was complete by 1512; in the same year the outer roof of timber and lead, begun under Edward IV, was carried westward and finished by the master carpenter Richard Russell; the great fan vault beneath it,PAGE FOUR