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The choir was of some length, and its length was broken by an apsidal chapel on each side, pointing north and south, so as to form a kind of small eastern transept. But the greater part of what is left is very fine work of the thirteenth century, finished at the west end in the fourteenth.
The first transept cuts the nave beneath the sixth, and the second beneath the ninth vault. The choir stands beneath the fourth and fifth vaults, and the high altar between the two transepts, occupying the seventh and eighth space. Beneath the tenth stands the parish chapel or ex-high altar, behind which runs the ambulatory, on the off-side of which are situated the five apsidal chapels.
A rather exceptional feature is that the eastern ambulatory is semicircular within but rectangular without, although the long chapel that projects from this ambulatory has an apsidal, not a rectangular, termination.
The Abbey was founded by the Saxon Athelstan, about 939. The remains may be traced of an apsidal Norm. Lady Chapel, a square-ended Lady Chapel of later date. A few tiles are preserved in the adjoining church. N. of the parish church is another interesting building, the old Vicarage House, dating from the 14th or 15th cent. In another house hard by is a fragment of Norm. carving.
The two arches leading into them were built up, but the geometrical east windows of the chapels were inserted in them, and now give light to the retro-choir. The ends of the choir aisles are apsidal within, but flat without. This arrangement leads to great thickness at the corners of the walls. At one time there was a detached campanile for the bells of Romsey.
Gothic elements, more so than in Zamora, mix with the Romanesque traditions in the decoration of the nave and aisles; nevertheless, the elements of construction are purely Romanesque, excepting the central apsidal chapel which contains the high altar.
We walked out to S. Nicolò, an early church, which crowns a hillock thickly sown with asphodels in blossom, some little distance from the road and a mile or so from Nona. It is cruciform in plan, with apsidal terminations to three arms, the west being square, and having a door with a semicircular tympanum above it internally.
In the west wall of the north end of the transept a perpendicular window has been cut through a group of Norman windows, showing how little regard mediaeval builders had for the preservation of earlier work. Opposite to this is one of the two apsidal chantries, which in its time has served various purposes.
The two westernmost, which are circular and without tracery a type of window that is somewhat rare can hardly be later than the time of Archbishop Roger, and may be earlier: the next two are square and of much later date. Above the windows the eaves of the original roofs remain, supported on a corbel-table which is carried round the apsidal chamber at the corner and round the eastern apse.
Both choir and altar are rich in decorative details. Behind the high altar runs the ambulatory, joining the aisles and separating the former from the apse and its chapels. Sometimes an oval window pierces the wall of the trasaltar and lets the light from the apsidal windows enter the high altar; this arrangement is called a transparente.
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