BISHOP MORAN MEMORIAL.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIII, Issue 46, 13 March 1896, Page 15

BISHOP MORAN MEMORIAL.

A MORTUARY CHAPEL OVEB THE REMAINS. A meeting of the late Bishop Moran Memorial Committee was held in Bishop's House, Dunedin, on Wednesday, 4th inst, It was resolved to proceed with the erection of the Mortuary Chapel in the Southern Cemetery over the remains of the venerated Bishop. The contract for the memorial designed by Mr. F. W. Petre, arcbitec f , has been entered into by Mr D. W. Woods, builder, Dunedin. DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT. The chapel, which is designed to be monumental in form, is thirteenth century Gothic in style. It has a total breadth and width of 18ft by 18ft, approached by a flight of 12 steps, 50ft wide in their extremest width. The whole edifies, from the foot of the steps to the top of the cross on the spire, rises to a height of 52ft. The chapel, which is placed on a platform at the top of the steps, is exactly square in plan, and has two buttresses at each angle, which rise np in two ramps to the height of the spring of the roof-canopit> at which point they are terminated by crocketted pinnacles. The base of the building for 6ft up is to be of Waikawa stone, and from this point upwards, Oamaru stone will be used. On three sides, i c., the east, west, and sonth side, are placed traceried windows, the stone filled in with painted ghss. On the north side there is the entrance doorway, having moolded stone jambs, and above it a stone tracery rose window, also filled in with painted glass. Each of the four sides of the building is finished with a canopied gable, rising between the buttresses, having the coping of the canopy dpcorated with carved mouldings, crockets, and finial. The spandril of each canopy is filled in with tracery, the central rose of which contains the Bishop's shield and crest. Inside, the ceiling of the chapel is finished in groined vaulting, with a carved central rose, and carved drops to the groin-ribs. The roof over all is formed with four valleys, carried down to the junction of the buttresses, aud covered with glazed tiles. From the centre of the roof, at the junction or the ridges, and carried on the groins below, the spiie rises. It has a solid masonry basa, octagonal in form, from which spring eight small columns with carved caps, carrying the eight cusped arcnes, which open into the base of the spire. The spire itself ia also octagonal in section, and has its ribs decorated with carved crockets and its finial finished with an iron cross. Beneath the floor of the chapel is built the vault, Bft deep and Bft square, and within the chapel itself is placed a stone altar, suitable for the celebration of Mase. This memorial will form a very prominent object in the southern end of Dunedin, and will be visible to travellers approaching the city by both the north and south trains, as well as from many points in the length of Princes street,