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Very noticeable to everyone coming into this part of the church is the great, some think excessive, use made of the famous dark marble from the quarries of Purbeck, in the vaulting and other shafts, in their bands, and in the string-courses that divide the stories. These, though now so dull, will admit of a high polish, but, unfortunately, do not retain it long.
Our artist has furnished us with an admirable illustration of it. Its great height, its characteristic narrow Saxon doorways, heavy plain imposts, the string-courses surrounding the building, the arcades of pilasters, the carved figures of angels are some of its most important features.
It had at least three, and may not improbably have had a larger number of entrances, since it belongs to tranquil times and a secure locality. The ornamentation of the existing facade of the palace is by doorways, doubly-arched recesses, pilasters, and string-courses. These last divide the building, externally, into an appearance of three or four distinct stories.
The end and west side of this transept, which remain more or less as they were in Archbishop Roger's day, resemble the corresponding walls of the other, yet with the following differences. The roof-shafts on the west side are thinner here than there, and are carried up to the required height in one piece, unbroken save by the string-courses.
"Where?" asked the old servant. "Where you will." The gondolier divined his master's wishes, and by many windings brought him at last into the Canareggio, to the door of a wonderful palazzo, which you will admire when you see Venice, for no traveler ever fails to stop in front of those windows, each of a different design, vying with each other in fantastic ornament, with balconies like lace-work; to study the corners finishing in tall and slender twisted columns, the string-courses wrought by so inventive a chisel that no two shapes are alike in the arabesques on the stones.
The sill of the old window was lowered to give more length. Most of the window now to be seen is the result of recent restoration. Parts of the old string-courses remain in the walling. The south side of the #Lady-Chapel# beyond the chapel just described has four bays. In each of these is a large three-light window. The western and smallest one was probably first inserted.
The last pendentive of the vaulting rests on a single shaft springing directly from a head-corbel. The string-courses are not of the same pattern with those on the older bays. On the south side the westernmost Perpendicular bay, up to the triforium, is solid and covered with cinquefoil panelling.
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 are not continued across the nave beneath the lancet windows.
See Weston-super-Mare. Wraxall, a parish 5 m. E. from Clevedon and 2 m. from Nailsea Station. Its church has a tower, the appearance of which is spoilt by the windows rising above the string-courses. In the interior observe the roof, some screen-work, partly ancient and partly modern, on the N. side of the chancel a tomb with two effigies, believed to be those of Sir E. and Lady Gorges.
In proof of these things there is even now one of these same old windows in almost its original state within the little chamber known as the priest-vicars' vestry. This window is in the bay of aisle walling immediately against the transept wall. The string-courses of the old windows were continued round the later buttresses.
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