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Updated: May 11, 2025
Within, the tower arch claims first attention as the most exceptional feature of the church. It is of majestic dimensions, and the workmanship is bold and rugged. The N. and S. transeptal arches retain their round heads as originally constructed, but the E. and W. piers carry pointed arches.
The church tower, with double belfry windows, closely resembles that of its neighbour at Huish Episcopi. It is inferior in its buttresses and mouldings, but has a better W. window. The elaborate crown produces a more top-heavy effect than at Huish. The piers of the chancel and transeptal arches are ornamented with foliage, and the chancel windows are large, with traceried transoms.
This complete and harmonious front is nobly enriched by the splendid note of contrast in the two transeptal Norman towers, whose massive structural elegance and elaborateness of detail lend an extraordinary breadth and solidity to the edifice. The grandeur which distinguishes the exterior is only a fitting preparation for the solemnity and splendor of the interior.
The plan shows a nave and aisles of five bays, large transeptal chapels, and an apsidal chancel projecting beyond the two square chapels by which it is flanked. As usual the nave and aisles have a wooden roof, only the chancel and chapels being vaulted. There is also a later tower at the west end of the north aisle, and a choir gallery across the west end of the church.
Through these hagioscopes or "holy spy-holes" the prior could see mass being celebrated at the high altar and at the altars below in the transept, without entering the cathedral. These transeptal altars are in the Chapels of St. Martin and St. Stephen which occupy two apses in the eastern wall. St.
By far the most notable building in Abbotsbury is the fifteenth-century Monastic Barn, a fine structure 276 feet long. Its plan is as perfect as its simple but imposing architecture; the ecclesiastical appearance is heightened by the lancet windows between the heavy buttresses and the slight transeptal extensions that give the structure the form of a cross.
The two Norman transeptal towers still standing give the Cathedral a unique appearance, this arrangement being found nowhere else in England, save at the highly interesting and not far distant Collegiate Church of Ottery St. Mary.
The transeptal chapels were once brilliant with statuary and colour, but the axes and hammers of the image breakers have successfully purged them of their original glory. All that is left for the admiration of the modern visitor are a few gaping recesses and a pile of gathered fragments.
All the Norman windows which had remained unaltered were now filled with tracery, not of particularly good design; the great west window and the others in the west wall were similarly treated; the conical tops to the transeptal corner turrets were altered into battlements; the screens in the transepts were made, and, probably, the groined wooden ceiling in the choir.
Inside, the aisles are divided from the nave by round chamfered arches springing from rather short octagonal piers, which have picturesque octagonal capitals and a moulded band half-way up. Only is the easternmost bay, opening to large transeptal chapels, pointed and moulded. The vaulting springs from corbels, and although the ribs are but simply chamfered they are well developed.
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