The St. Johns herald., 1893-12-21
ANCIENT ARCHITECTURE.
Important Discoveries at Gam
 bridge College, England.
Great Interest Aroused by the Unearth- ing of Remnants of Walls Erected in the Thirteenth
 Century,

Century.
 Nowadays, in England, if old build ings are touched at all, it is too often with view to their restoration-a word which in this case is a synonym for destruction. Therefore, when de liberate effort is made, not to give a new version of old work, but to free that old work from every modern en- croachment, the event is one of no small interest to all who are concerned with the history of the past, of no small importance to all who have made a study of architecture. And this is exactly what is happening just now at Jesus college, Cambridge, says the New York Nation.
 The college, it will be remembered, was not an independant foundation, but sprang from the old nunnery of St. Radegunde. The chief portion of the earlier buildings still remaining is the chapel Its attraction to the modern tourist, no doubt, is found in the Burne-Jones windows, which, it may be noted in passing, are quite the finest examples of stained glass that artist has yet given us. But, to the architect and arch@ologist, it is the church itself, with it's nave and tri- angle and its beautiful early English piers and arches and arcades. Of course. Kings stands alone as the great architectural marvel of Cam bridge; but Jesus chapel, in its own way, is only less fine if at first glance it must seem less imposing, while in historical associations and significance it is supreme.
 Recently an aged fellow of the col lege, remembering that when masons were putting a new coat of plaster on the inner cloister forty years ago he had fancied he distinguished the spring of an arch partially concealed in the old stone work, determined to have the plaster pulled off. What he has found proves to be one of the most important architectural discoveries made in England for many years. The arch, which had been just indicated in the stonework, has turned out to be just one of three, and these have been almost entirely set free from the wall during long centuries gradually built up about them. They belong to the purest period of the thirteenth century, good authorities affirming that they date back to 1230. or whereabouts. The reasons for this belief are the capitals, which still show some suggestion of Norman influence, and the beautiful detached shafts, which later architects never introduced, having learned that greater strength, if less charm, was secured by connecting them to the central shaft with bands.
 The holdings and the carved foliage of the capitals are in the most wonder ful state of preservation, and the stone is of almost dazzling whiteness-a whiteness to be attributed, perhaps, partly to whitewash and destined not long to survive exposure to the foggy English atmosphere and the smoke of Cambridge. Thanks to their chance burial, the arches have escaped the re- storer; indeed, they have been brought to light at the best moment, now that a few men, at least, begin to under stand the folly of tampering with the none too many relics and monuments of the past still left Not so far re- moved is the time when the old piscina was discovered in the chapel; then the one idea was to restore it; now college dignitaries are of another way of thinking. The arches form the door way and near windows of the nuns chapter house. Its floor evidently was much below the level of the present cloister, but the necessary excavations have been made to the very base of the central door, so as to show the propor- tions of shafts and arches in their original grace and purity.
 Nor will the floor be filled in again. The cloister here is, in term time, one of the very busy thoroughfares of Jesus; but for little space it will be narrowed, in order that the effect of this beautiful bit of the old monastic building may be seen in all its loveli- ness and perfection. In the course of digging, the worlxmen came upon a fine stone coffin with sculptured top the coffin of an early prioress-and this probably will be left lying exactly where it was found, turned to east and west, even though part of it must re- main hidden under so much of the pavement as utility refuses to sacrifice to archaeology. This discovery rightly has aroused great interest in Cam bridge.