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Updated: May 2, 2025
Cut in the rock, the crypt formed two narrow passages, parted by a massive block of stone which upheld the nave, and conducting to a subterranean chapel under the apse, where some little lamps remained burning both day and night. A dim forest of pillars rose up there, a mystic terror reigned in that semi-obscurity where the mystery ever quivered.
Conover's predecessor removed the tea-things and brought out a tray of glasses and lemonade with ice clinking refreshingly against the sides of the jug. When the game was over, the players came and drank and sat about the lawn. The shadow of the apse had spread over the garden to the steps of the porch.
The ground in front of the church is paved with fine slabs of stone. The steps by which the church was entered were 5 feet wide, but the doorway itself was somewhat wider. From the entrance to the altar step, or platform, the distance is 55 feet, and from that point to the back of the apse 15 feet 6 inches; the width of the apse is 16 feet 6 inches. The width of the church is 24 feet 6 inches.
Again, this apse and ambulatory are not perpendicular to the transept, but set askew, a thing known in small churches and said to be a symbol, but surely very rare in large ones. The western door is purely Romanesque, and has Byzantine ornaments and a great deep round door.
The choir consists of three bays, but has only one aisle on either side. This is continued round the apse, and five pentagonal chapels radiate from it.
A few years ago repairs to the roof led to the discovery of windows in the inner apse. The work round the doors is Euphrasian. The corridors were spanned by arches, which are now built up, and thus make small rooms.
'the concentration of flattened sacks, rising forty feet above the altar; but, above that, the belt of the apse windows, rich with sweet mellowed stained glass, under the dome-like roof. The stalls in the choir are very rich, as people know, carved in wood, in the early sixteenth century, with high twisted canopies, and histories, from the Old Testament mostly, wrought about them.
The triumphal arch is round, with early caps and impost mouldings; other early caps and columns are visible in the walls of the choir in hollows made to expose them. The theory is that there was a confessional behind the apse instead of below it, of which these fragments are the remains.
Excepting this portal a marvel in its class with its rounded tympanum richly ornamented the portion of the building doubtless more strongly imbued than any other with the general spirit of the edifice is that part of the apse independent of the octagonal addition previously mentioned, and which is dedicated to "La Virgen de los Ojos Grandes" the Virgin of the Large Eyes.
A beautiful angel in Carrara marble adorns the space before the chancel, above the burial-slabs of King Frederick William IV., founder of the church, and his queen; and the apse is lined with a rare old Venetian mosaic.
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