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The pillars supporting the canopy have fine capitals, and above them are cusped arches, with richly-carved scroll work in their spandrels. Above is a further tier of arches, supported by short shafts, also having beautiful capitals. Above these arches are gables covered with crockets, and on the gables are elaborate finials.
The insertion of two later monuments, now much dilapidated, involved the destruction of much of the beautiful wall arcades. These were of three complete divisions on each wall, and have cusped heads. The upper part, below the finishing horizontal string-course, is composed of two full and two half quatrefoils.
Farther to the west, beyond the steps leading down from the choir, is a Perpendicular chantry, known as the Harys chantry; it has open tracery above cusped panels, canopied niches, and a panelled bench table. Robert Harys was rector of Shrowston, and died in 1525; his rebus, a hare under the letter R, may be seen on the panels.
On either side of the rose window are small lancet windows with smaller blind arches on each side of them. Both windows and arches are surrounded also with dog-tooth moulding. An arcading with shafts and cusped arches runs along the base of the front, not quite reaching the exterior buttresses. In the centre is the porch by which entrance to the minster is generally obtained.
Though some of the capitals at the east end look almost romanesque, the really late date is shown by the cusped fringing of the chancel arch, a feature very common at Batalha, which was begun at the end of the fourteenth century, and by the window tracery, where in the two-light windows the head is filled by a flat pierced slab.
Now I differ from Mr. Ruskin with extreme hesitation. I agree that the cusped arch is not meant to imitate a leaf. I think with Mr. Ruskin, that it was probably first adopted on account of its superior strength; and that it afterwards took the form of a bough.
The capitals in some cases are carved, in others moulded only. Above each capital is a small carved boss. This, doubtless, was the stop to some member on the angles of the spirelets. Springing from the capitals are moulded and cusped arches, which form on either side the heads of the panelled divisions.
Here there is nothing very unusual: the smaller chapels all end in three-sided apses, at whose angles are buttresses, remarkable only for the great number of string courses, five in all, which divide them horizontally; these buttresses are finished by two offsets just below a plain corbel table which is now crowned by an elaborately pierced and cusped parapet which may well have been added later.
The fine #Piscina# in the easternmost bay on the north side, just behind the altar, deserves notice. Its recess has a richly cusped arch, and in the wall below is a curious cupboard, intended probably for the sacramental vessels. #The Sedilia# stand on the other side, in the third bay from the east. The stalls are of stone, three in number, and in date late Perpendicular.
The round-arched west door stands under a pointed gable, but seems to have lost by decay and consequent restoration whatever ornament its rather flat mouldings may once have had. Above is a good wheel window, with a cusped circle in the centre, surrounded by eight radiating two-arched lights separated by eight radiating columns.
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