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And now, before reverting to the sacristy, for such I think, for divers reasons, it must have been, let us take a parting look at the inserted Geometrical window. Surprising as the fact cannot fail to appear to us with our ingrained love of mechanical exactitude and symmetry when the new south front of the nave had been completed, this window, instead of being taken out and reset centrally as aforetime, was allowed to remain in statu quo, notwithstanding the strikingly unpleasing and lop sided effect produced; and there too, like the embedded buttress, it remains to teach us history. But now to the sacristy. When it was built the south wall of the nave was, as I have said, still standing six feet north of the south-western angle of the crossing. But the new sustaining buttress was built quite detached six feet southwards of it, in line with the contemplated new nave wall. Therefore the dimensions of the sacristy could not possibly have been extended northwards, and must thus have been all along of the most restricted character. But it had speedily to be dispensed with altogether. For when the new south wall had been built up and attached to the buttress, it was

1 The reason of the west front being left in this awkward and unsightly state was due, probably, not so much to indifference, as to want of means, otherwise something would pretty certainly have been done to remedy the defect. And this consideration raises the question of the whole subject of the recasting which the church and cloister alleys, from time to time, underwent. From the excessive poverty of the foundation, as appears in the charters and other documents, it seems quite impossible to suppose that the abbot and convent could have accomplished such works at their own unaided cost. And if we ask-then, at whose else? we have no definite answer. The choir and cloister arcades, both important works, were taken in hand circa 1240-50. But the only circumstance of that period, of which we know anything, so far from being of the nature of a benefaction, is an action by Gilbert de Leya to compel the abbot to comply with the terms of his father's charter in respect of his endowment at Kilvington. And then as regards the next step, viz. the entire rebuilding of the south transept, perhaps as a lady chapel, we have nothing beyond the fact of John, Earl of Bretagne, in 1274, the proximate date of the work, appointing six of the canons to be chantry priests in his castle of Richmond, and who, from the interest he took in

them, might possibly also have befriended the abbot and brethren in continuing their work of re-edification westwards. As to whether the same powerful friend

or

some others, jointly or severally, assisted in carrying on the work to completion by rebuilding the south wall of the nave, there is simply nothing to show. But that all these several works must, for the most part, have depended for their accomplishment on some external aid or other, seems certain. As to the continuance of the west end in the condition to which the erection of the new south wall of the nave condemned it, there is this also to be said, viz. that in the first place it was not, as in some cases, probably, much seen; then that the original flat angle-buttress having been left standing, served to define and mark off as before, the position, not only of the west window, but also doorway, centrally, between itself and the corresponding one northwards, which any alteration in their position further south, so as to bring them into the centre of the new and broader gable, would, whatever advantage might have accrued to the appearance inside, have rendered the outside one about as unsightly as leaving them in their original positions. latter plan, as being both the cheapest and least troublesome, was therefore adopted.

The

discovered that there was no way of access to the new central tower, and this it became necessary, of course, to provide without delay. Towards the north-west, north-east, and south-east of the crossing, no such stair could conveniently be constructed. first of those positions it would have intruded into and blocked the angle of the narrow cloisters; in the second and third because it would have blocked and disfigured the responds of the north, south, and east arches. Only the south-west quarter, therefore, remained, and it was utilised accordingly. The sacristy, though so recently constructed, was thereupon at once pulled down, and the angle filled in by a projecting stair-turret, access to which was had by the partial blocking and removing of the original large doorway and the insertion of one very much smaller, and more suitable for such purpose, in its place. How the staircase was contrived remains for us to see, and a curiously interesting as well as picturesque piece of work it is. But the need for such an adjunct had evidently been quite overlooked when both the transept and nave walls were being rebuilt, since no bond or toothing was prepared for it whatever. As a natural consequence of such neglect, there is seen to be next to no bonding at all, the joints on both sides being all but unbroken and continuous. Nor is that all, for the north-western angle of the turret had to be splayed away to the utmost extent practicable, in order to avoid running into the adjacent window, the easternmost of whose lights it would have utterly obscured.

As to the new south front of the nave, it will be found worthy of the most careful attention. Like the transept, it is built wholly of fine ashlar, and without any intermixture of rubble, as in the choir. Its base moulds are similar to, and continuous with, those of the transept; and there are four bays, separated by well-designed buttresses of two stages, but with plainly sloping, instead of gabled and crocketted heads, like those which form such salient features there. Simple and early looking as the whole elevation may, and to the superficial observer probably does, appear, it will be discovered on closer study to be of much later date, and, in the windows especially, of much richer character than at first sight might be thought. The three plain lancets, set under equally plain looking arches, suggest a period distinctly earlier than that of the transept, with its fine, and fully-developed Geometrical traceries; while the absence of cusping conveys an impression of bareness and simplicity, which a narrower scrutiny speedily serves to dissipate. And so the old lesson is again taught us, that absence of ornament is no more indicative of poverty, than simplicity of form, of early date.

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As to details, while the string courses above and below the windows-like the base moulds-follow those of the transept, the sections of the window jambs and arches differ considerably. For while the two outer moulds of the earlier transept windows consist each of a single hollow chamfer, the third, or inner one of the tracery plane being flat; those of the nave windows are all alike, and consist of flat chamfers, within whose lines a hollow has been sunk in such fashion as to leave only a narrow strip or border of the flat surface on either side of it, producing thereby a multiplicity of lines and variations of light and shade which, with all their seeming simplicity of form, involve a vast amount of cutting, and produce a very rich, though subdued, but fine effect.

Beneath the sill of the westernmost of these four windows, a small, but good and delicately moulded doorway has been contrived, in striking contrast to the severely plain twelfth century one opposite opening to the cloister. As to the chief western one, it has been so utterly destroyed that not a fragment of it is to be found anywhere. Its place many years since a yawning gap-has latterly been blocked up with multitudinous fragments of wreckage of all sorts, amongst them being part of a gable-cross.

It rests now, I think, only for me to say that on the outside the flat, pilaster buttress of what was originally the south-west angle of the nave remains intact, but built up to on its south side by the six feet of walling, wherewith the width of that part of the structure was ultimately increased, while on the inside the rough and jagged surface marking the junction of the original south and west walls also remains, as though it had never been properly levelled up.

As to the north wall of the nave, two of the three original small lancets opening above the cloister roof still exist entire, together with the west side of the third, all the rest of the north-eastern part of the walling having long since been destroyed.

This completes our survey of the fabric of the church as first built, and afterwards at divers times rebuilt and enlarged. The singularly beautiful, impressive, and admirably balanced picture presented by it at the close of the thirteenth century can now, unfortunately, be realised by the eye of the mind only-drawn from such fragments as yet remain. For the fifteenth century, as usual, did only too evidently, well nigh all that could be done to ruin and. destroy the effect of what once had been so fair, so stately, and so

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