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The glass is of little interest, save that in the third window from the west, by Burlison & Grylls, and a few seventeenth century fragments. The vaulting-shafts here are single, and are half-octagons with their sides slightly hollowed, and they again break the string-course, which rises to pass over the doorway. Wilfrid.
Fortunately the three westernmost are original. They are as usual round-headed and plainly splayed, and their sills descend to the string-course in steps. Archbishop Roger's vaulting-shafts here are in better preservation than in the other aisle.
The panels are pointed and divided each into two cinquefoil divisions. The Perpendicular clearstorey windows have their rims moulded, but are not splayed. The vaulting-shafts resemble those in the Decorated bays, but their corbels are polygonal and have the sides slightly hollowed, and the abacus of the capital is a half-lozenge.
The larger and heavier group of vaulting-shafts against the aisle-wall, and the strong arch spanning the aisle across this point in place of the groin-rib, were all parts of the tower.... The transformation of the base of these two immense towers into a compartment of the aisle, so similar to all the rest that its real nature has never been hitherto suspected, is highly ingenious.
Without meddling with the vaulting or the vaulting-shafts, the pier-arches and triforium range of the thirteenth century have been changed into arches of the fourteenth, resting on tall slender pillars, almost recalling the choir of Le Mans.
The clearstorey has a second plane of tracery, a feature not very common in England. The vaulting-shafts are in clusters of three and are filleted, and the string-course below the triforium is not carried round them. Each cluster springs from a semicircular corbel resting on a head, and has its capitals enriched with foliage.
In its eastern portion this aisle resembles the other, but the bench-table here is only carried two bays westward, and the panelling only one bay. Of the stained glass, that in the last window on the south side is of some merit. The capitals of the Decorated vaulting-shafts are better executed in this aisle than in the other.
Over the last two complete columns there is a little foliage, and of the corbels of the vaulting-shafts one is enriched with foliage while the other consists of a head between two embracing figures. There is foliage upon the capitals of these vaulting-shafts, and upon the capital and base of that which supports the last pendentive of the vaulting.
Seen from below, from the bridge across the Rille at no great distance, there is something wonderfully striking in this single side of the church, an inside seen from outside, with its sheltered windows and vaulting-shafts, standing against the side of the castle-hill. How was it when both abbey and castle were perfect? As it is, the abbey is the more prominent of the two.
At any rate, between the bays of the vaulting there is a plain cross-arch of remarkable thickness, whose eastern respond is cut off above the tomb, as are also the two adjacent vaulting-shafts, which have had heads carved upon their ends. The lower parts of the walls display traces of a design in red representing round arches interlaced.
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