g2 REPTON PRIORY. 
inner arch of the great west door remains. A heavy wall 
has been built along the top of what was spared of 
the west end at the demolition of the church, and until it is 
removed nothing can be said as to the plan and design of 
the doorway. Of the south aisle, which was 12 feet wide, 
nothing is left except a few feet of the wall at either end, where it 
joined the transept and the west front; all the rest has been 
entirely removed. In its west wall is the doorway and lowest 
steps of a circular stair, 2 feet 3 inches wide. The base of the 
north aisle wall remains intact for its entire length to a height of 
2 feet ; it has the usual doorway at each end communicating with 
the cloister, though now carefully blocked up. In the wall 
opposite the first pier is a small semi-octagonal respond, showing 
there was an arch thrown over the aisle at this point. The reason 
of this is not clear, for there could have been no lateral thrust ; 
and the base is not an insertion, but contemporary with the wall. 
In the first bay is also another curious feature. Immediately to 
the east of the cloister door is a low, but acutely pointed arch, 
only rt foot ro inches wide, opening into a small recess. A 
modern cesspool has been built against it on the north side, 
to receive which it has been much cut about, and in the wall 
above it a chimney shaft appears to have been constructed ; a fire- 
place it can hardly have been, but since the tower piers are not 
large enough to carry a staircase, we most probably have here the 
entrance to a circular vice leading on to the aisle or transept roof, 
whence there would be another up the tower. To the east of this 
arch the wall suddenly turns north at a small angle to a remarkable 
straight joint in the wall. The existence of this is puzzling, but I 
think it may be explained thus: when the arch opening into the 
aisle from the transept was constructed, the present aisle wall 
was not built, but an aisle was contemplated of slightly greater 
width than was eventually carried out; also, when the recon- 
struction of the nave was taken in hand, it was begun at the 
east end, as far as the arcade was concerned, but the work 
came to a standstill after it had got as far as the third arch, and 
when the final resumption of the work took place, it commenced 
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