Bells Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey | Page 6

and again, there is open
ground to the west, so that the unique and splendid western façade can
be well seen. The space to the south side of the building is more limited;
it is entered through an iron gateway running in a line with the west
front; should this gate be locked, the space to the east of it may be
entered by passing from the inside of the church through either the
nuns' or the abbess's doorway; when access to this little strip of
churchyard has once been gained, it is easy to pass right along the south
side of the nave round the south end of the crossing and then to the
eastern wall of the ambulatory.
As we follow the winding lanes and streets that lead from the station to
the church, we get our first view of it from the road that skirts its
northern wall. On the left hand there is a wall running from the
north-east corner of the choir, which conceals indeed a few details of
the lower part of the east end, but does not hide the two beautiful
geometrical windows in the east wall of the choir, inserted within the
semicircular headed mouldings of the original Norman windows. We
may also see the square-faced termination of the north choir aisle
projecting eastward of the wall that forms the east end of the choir. The
next noteworthy object is an apsidal chapel or chantry running out from
the east wall of the transept, its walls pierced by wide round headed
windows. This is also a good point from which to study the clerestory
as seen in choir and crossing. The same general arrangement prevails
throughout the building, though here and there certain modifications

will be noticed. Each clerestory bay on the north side has a window
consisting of three arches, the central and wider one is glazed, the two
others are blocked with stone. Three tiers (two in each) of round headed
windows light the ends of the transepts.
On the north side the windows of the nave aisle are very irregular; this
is due to the fact, mentioned in Chapter I, that considerable alterations
were made in this part of the church at the beginning of the fourteenth
century in order to provide a parish church for the inhabitants of the
town. The north wall of the aisle was largely cut away in order to throw
this aisle open to the new building erected parallel to the Abbey church,
which was to be used as the nave of the parish church. Joining this on
the north side was a chantry of the confraternity of St. George which
formed a kind of north aisle for the parish church. Windows would of
course be required to light this new building and would of necessity be
designed in accordance with the style--the Perpendicular--then
prevailing. When, after the dissolution of the nunnery, the Abbey
church became the church of the parish, the recently erected
Perpendicular church would be no longer of any use, and the keeping of
it in repair a continual source of expense; hence it was pulled down, the
openings in what had been the original north wall of the nave aisle of
the Abbey church were walled up, and the mouldings and glass of the
Perpendicular windows on the north side of the parish church were
inserted in these new walls. Hence we get windows of different heights
and levels between the great north door and the transept: recent
alterations have still further increased the irregularity. The parish
church did not, apparently, extend so far to the west as the Abbey
church, hence the two windows to the west of the north door were not
interfered with when the parish church was built. It has been already
pointed out that the three western bays of the nave are of later date and
later in style than the rest of the nave; they were built in the thirteenth
century, and consequently all the windows found in this part of the
church have pointed heads.
[Illustration: THE WEST END AND SOUTH TRANSEPT]
The #West Front#. A unique feature of this church is its west front. It is

one of singular beauty, but its beauty does not depend on any
enrichment of decoration, for a simpler front it would be impossible to
find: there is not a single carved stone about it. Its beauty is due to the
exquisite proportions of the various parts. The nave and aisles are of the
same length. At the corners of the aisles are rectangular buttresses and
two similar ones stand at the ends of the main walls of the nave.
String-courses, starting from the aisle buttresses, run below the aisle
windows and round the buttresses of the nave, but