St. Paul's - Table of Contents

2003 Hammer-beam ceiling, Clerestory, Nave, Gallery
St. Paul's Episcopal Cathedral
139 Pearl Street, Buffalo, NY

See additional photos at 2009 South Clerestory Windows and 2009 Two Nave Windows: St Luke and Joshua

TEXT BENEATH ILLUSTRATIONS


Click on photos for larger size -- and additional information

Clerestory

Clerestory

Clerestory

Clerestory

Hammer-beam  ceiling


The spandrels are pierced with trefoils.

Detail - carved and gilded angel

Clerestory

Hammer-beam  ceiling


Depictions of New Testament saints

St. Matthias



Clerestory windows
designed by
Katharine Lamb Tait
of J&R Lamb Studios,
Tenafly, NJ.


St. Agnes

 

 


       

Nave

Nave

Gallery

Gallery

St. Luke by Henry Wynd Young Studio
in 1928 / Joshua by
John Hardman & Co., of London, England

Detail - St. Luke


The 1975 organ


The 1851 replacement church designed by Richard Upjohn was almost entirely destroyed by fire caused by a natural-gas explosion in 1888. The restored church was designed by Robert W. Gibson.

In Gibson's design,

The Clerestory stained glass figures of the saiants were installed in 1958.


Hammer-beam: In Gothic architecture, one of a pair of of short horizontal members attached to the foot of a principal rafter in a roof, in place of a tie beam

In order to give greater height in the center, the ordinary tie beam is cut through, and the portions remaining, known as hammer beams, are supported by curved braces from the wall

Rafter: one of the sloping beams that supports a pitched roof

Tie beam: In roof framing, a horizontal timber connecting two opposite rafters at their lowest ends to prevent them from spreading.

Hammer-beam roof: consists of a series of
trusses, repeated at intervals, and its object is to transmit the weight and thrust of the roof as low as possible in the supporting wall

Truss; A rigid framework, as of wooden beams or metal bars, designed to support a structure, such as a roof.

The ends of the hammer beams are usually decorated with winged angels holding shields; the curved braces and beams are richly molded, and the spandrels in the larger examples filled in with tracery, as in Westminster Hall. Sometimes, but rarely, the collar beam is similarly treated, or cut through and supported by additional curved braces

The English developed as did no other nation the construction of various types of open timber roofs, which culminated in the elaborate hammer-beam variety of the fifteenth century, often gaily painted in gold and colors. The French, on the contrary, favored the stone vault, which generally necessitated external flying buttresses, and this makes a marked contrast. both internal and external, between the churches of the two countries.


Photos and their arrangement © 2003 Chuck LaChiusa
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