Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury with some Account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst Gloucestershire — Key Ideas to Explore

The Author's Critical Voice

Massé frequently interjects personal assessments into his architectural descriptions. Of the Salviati mosaic he writes 'the effect is not good, as too strong a light falls upon the gold background,' and he dismisses a Clayton and Bell window as 'very poor and uninteresting.' He also warns against 'any attempt at polychrome decoration of the ordinary kind' in the Norman chapel, citing a negative example at Gloucester. These judgments are not mere asides; they shape the reader's attention, directing it toward features the author considers worthy or problematic. A first-time reader should note that Massé's evaluations are often tied to specific conditions—lighting, restoration history, or comparison with other buildings—and are not blanket statements.

Use of Plans and Spatial Orientation

Massé repeatedly refers the reader to a plan of the building, as when he explains that the east window of the Norman chapel 'was perforce blocked up when the ambulatory chapels were built' and that 'no other position for a window being possible, as will easily be seen by reference to the plan.' This reliance on a visual aid is central to his method: he assumes the reader has the plan at hand and uses it to clarify spatial relationships that text alone cannot convey. The description of the south transept's upper chamber—a 'large vaulted room' that communicated with the Norman triforium—similarly depends on an understanding of vertical circulation, which the plan and section presumably illustrate. For a first reading, keeping the plan accessible is essential.

Treatment of Later Alterations and Misconceptions

Massé is attentive to the building's post-medieval history, noting changes such as the removal of the font from the Norman chapel to a north-east chapel 'up to the time of the restoration in 1875,' and the transfer of the choir altar to the same chapel afterward. He also corrects popular errors: the upper chamber, he states, has been given 'absurd names,' the 'most absurd being that of the Nun's Prison.' Citing Mr. Blunt, he observes that 'there are many people who cannot hear about monks without immediately thinking of nuns.' This debunking impulse—grounding speculation in documentary evidence (the room 'communicated with the dorter or dormitory' and was for 'invalid monks')—characterizes Massé's approach to the abbey's fabric as a palimpsest of functional and liturgical changes.

The Deerhurst Appendix as a Comparative Case

Although the excerpts focus on Tewkesbury, the title promises 'some account of the Priory Church of Deerhurst.' The inclusion of Deerhurst, a Saxon church, allows Massé to extend his architectural analysis to an earlier period. The preface acknowledges permission to reproduce blocks from a paper on Saxon churches by J.T. Micklethwaite, suggesting that the Deerhurst section draws on specialized scholarship. For a first reader, this appendix functions as a counterpoint: where Tewkesbury is largely Norman and later, Deerhurst offers a pre-Conquest baseline. Massé's method—close observation of fabric, reliance on plans, and critical use of sources—can be expected to apply there as well, making the two studies complementary.

Massé's guide rewards a reader who moves slowly, with plan in hand, and who accepts his opinions as part of the evidence. The book is not a neutral inventory but a personal, learned tour. Pay attention to the dates he supplies for alterations and to his asides about what has been lost or obscured. The Deerhurst section, though brief, may sharpen your eye for Saxon features. Above all, treat Massé's judgments as starting points for your own observation.

Reading Massé’s patient tracing of Tewkesbury’s stone layers, I thought of my grandfather’s worn Bible, marginal notes in faint pencil. He’d linger on endurance, on what survives alteration. That same quiet reverence surfaced years later in Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs — Background and Themes, where faith’s architecture stands, chipped but unshaken. Both books feel like listening to old walls breathe.