The Spire The Spire The Spire is a 1964 novel by the English author William Golding. "A dark and powerful portrait of one man's will", it deals with the construction of the 404-foot high spire loosely based on Salisbury Cathedral; the vision of the fictional Dean Jocelin. In this novel, William Golding utilises stream of consciousness writing with an omniscient but increasingly fallible narrator. Jocelin, the Dean of the cathedral, directs the construction of a towering spire funded by his aunt, Lady Alison, a mistress of the former King. The project is carried on against the advice of many, and in particular
Old St Paul's Cathedral the spire, and was probably more beautiful both inside and out than that of any other English cathedral." According to the architectural historian John Harvey, the octagonal chapter house, built about 1332 by William Ramsey, was the earliest example of Perpendicular Gothic. This is confirmed by Alec Clifton-Taylor, who notes that the chapter house and St Stephen's chapel at Westminster Abbey predate the early Perpendicular work at Gloucester Cathedral by several years. The foundations of the chapter house were recently made visible in the redeveloped south churchyard of the new cathedral. The finished cathedral of the Middle Ages was renowned