Spire spires were an astounding architectural innovation, beginning with the early fourteenth-century spire at Freiburg Minster, in which the pierced stonework was held together by iron cramps. The openwork spire, according to Robert Bork, represents a "radical but logical extension of the Gothic tendency towards skeletal structure." The organic skeleton of Antoni Gaudi's phenomenal spires at the Sagrada Família in Barcelona represent an outgrowth of this Gothic tendency. Designed and begun by Gaudi in 1884, they were not completed until the 20th century. In England, "spire" immediately brings to mind Salisbury Cathedral. Its 403-foot (123-m) spire, built between 1320 and 1380,
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