Virtual Tour of Rochester Cathedral
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The South Transept and Lady Chapel - more info
Continuing across the Cathedral, we come round the nave altar and cross into the south transept.
What is now the South Transept originally housed the chapel of St Mary the Virgin; the current Lady Chapel is separated from it now by a wooden screen given in memory of Dean Storrs.
These two areas belong together historically. They were a mini-nave and chancel for a distinct and fairly large Lady Chapel. The present Lady Chapel is the newest of the major rebuilding works, being completed in the early sixteenth century. An earlier fourteenth-century Lady Chapel ‘nave’ was broadened and given those marvellous Perpendicular window arches in order to allow space for the new style of choral polyphonic singing which emerged in Edward IV’s reign and which has become such a significant feature of the ministry of cathedrals.
The picture above shows stately perpendicular arches and a simple, modern altar by Luke Hughes.The windows tell Christ’s story through his mother’s eyes.
