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Updated: June 15, 2025
Plain as are the imposts, they show that the work is of the confirmed Norman variety of Romanesque; there are no Primitive traces hanging about it, such as we see at Jumièges. The perfection of the Norman nave seems to have been tampered with in later days by cutting through a low transepted chapel on each side. The arches look as if they had supplanted a sixth arch of the nave.
Still enough remains to show that these old romanesque churches differed in no very striking way from the general romanesque introduced into Northern Spain from France, except that as a rule they were smaller and ruder, and were but seldom vaulted. That these early churches should be rude is not surprising. They are built of hard grey granite.
To the west are two large square towers; to the south a cloister added in 1376; and at the end of the north transept a chapel built at the end of the fifteenth century and entered by a large archway well carved with rich early renaissance ornament. If there is no advance from the romanesque plan of older churches, there is none in construction.
The course of time has brought none of the incongruities which have ruined many churches by the so-called restorations of the last three hundred years, and although its simple Romanesque is sadly unrepaired, it is a delight to come into the solitude and find an unspoiled example of this stanch old style.
In the interior there is still the feeling of Romanesque repose; nothing of the animation of the Pointed style no vine-leaf or other foliage breaks the severity of the lines. I ascended the tower with the bell-ringer's boy. In the bell-loft, with other lumber, was an old 'stretcher, very much less luxurious than the brancard that is used in Paris for carrying the sick and wounded.
The chancel was added later. St. Gabriel's, in Clifton Road, is an offshoot of this church, but, curiously enough, it does not come within the parochial boundaries. It was built in 1883. Following the road on the north side of the square, we pass the West London Tabernacle, a brick building in the late Romanesque style. Close by are St. James's Schools. St.
It is far otherwise with the Abbey of Saint Peter, whose apse, though on a far smaller scale, is distinctly more skilfully managed than that of the cathedral. The disused collegiate church of Saint Andrew has some good Transitional work, and Saint Martin-in-the-Vale, just outside the town, is a gem of bold and simple Romanesque.
There are the familiar, friendly little apses of the Romanesque; near them, above the east end of the north aisle, the squat tower with a modest, modern spire; and at its side, above the roof-line, is the octagon that stands over the dome. All this structure is unaffectedly simple.
When I spoke to him about a visit I had made to Wurzburg, and the desecration of the magnificent old Romanesque cathedral there by plastering its whole interior over with nude angels, and substituting for the splendid old mediaeval carving Louis Quinze woodwork in white and gold, he said: "Yes; you are right; and it was a bishop of my family who did it."
This great structure, a masterpiece of twelfth-century romanesque and dedicated to Saint Saturninus the Toulousains have abbreviated is, I think, alone worth a journey to Toulouse. What makes it so is the extraordinary seriousness of its interior; no other term occurs to me as expressing so well the character of its clear grey nave.
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