Thread by @DrJACameron

really is an eye-opener when you realise that the wide open space under the famous octagon of Ely Cathedral as captured by J.M.W. Turner is essentially a creation of the late 18thc that even the Victorians didn't dare roll back

Note in this Turner watercolour (exhib. 1797) how far back the organ and screen is into the E arm

The Romanesque pulpitum at the beginning of the second bay of the nave survived the tower collapse and remained the extent of the choir stalls until Wyatt had it demolished

*for the vistas*

if this had survived it would be by far the earliest pulpitum screen in England

so Ely monks' stalls are old but they've been moved wholesale twice since they were made. all the figural sculpture in the canopies is new but a lot of the structure is old and the misericords are fun, if you go around and flash them all like I did in *checks EXIF* 2009

reminder this is what the Lady Chapel looked like up till 1938

would take this over David Wynne's (ironic name) cringe statue any day.

also I should say: the sequence in the first tweet is based on a series of plans in the famous 1987 Age of Chivalry catalogue. It confused me for YEARS because the 1530s and Victorian plans had their captions reversed (BIG OOPS).

I also had to distort the 18thc plan to fit the others, because while none of them matched perfectly, this one was completely wrong. so, be careful with building plans, eh

scanning these out of the AoC was a bit of a faff because it's so heavy so was little annoyed they weren't even consistent. I mean I could just redo the captions for the last three because essentially the building is the same

could someone just publish already that Ely Lady chapel, with its bunch of nodding ogees that look like vulvas with variously dilated vaginas, is essentially one big fleshy allegory of the lineage of the Virgin leading to the birthing of the Saviour

i am too embarrassed, you see