Salisbury Cathedral and Its Diversity of Flying Buttresses

The flying buttresses of Salisbury Cathedral are unique in their number of diverse types and in the irregular layout of these types in the Cathedral plan. Yet research on this topic has been neglected both from the fields of art history and construction history. Now the various types of flying buttresses were surveyed each as part of the complete section of the building and have been examined with the means of building archaeology within the research project presented here.

The section drawings form the basis for the ongoing research which aims at gaining a realistic understanding of the structural function of the flying buttress types. In this paper the analysis of the structural behaviour of a selected number of flyers is presented. The flying buttresses are examined as isolated structures under minimum thrust conditions in order to exemplify their strengths and weaknesses. The examination of the behaviour of the flying buttresses in the context of the overall system of the cathedral will follow.