DATE OK MEI.HOUKXK PARISH CHURCH. 85 



end uf the nave, and of the central tower. The gallery uf 

 the western end of the Church is still carried by a groined 

 vaulting of grouted rubble of early construction : 



(4) by the middle arch of the lowest tier of arcading in the 



eastern side of the central tower (now a glazed door) being 

 open down to the floor, so as to give passage into an upper 

 chancel : 



(5) by there being in the eastern outer face of the central tower 



a second or upper tier of arcading, such as would be an 

 embellishment of the interior uf an upper chancel.'' 



If the upper chancel in Melbourne Church was a chantry 

 chapel, it is not surprising that it was destroyed, as were the apses 

 of the two transepts (also chantry chapels), after the abolition of 

 chantries. 



The windows in the north and south aisles, and the eastward 

 windows in the chancel and in the two transepts — inserted when 

 the apses were removed — are obviously of later construction ; but 

 with the exception of transition from triple round arches in the 

 northern triforium to double pointed arches in the southern 

 triforium, there is uniformity of style in the Romanesque archi- 

 tecture prevailing throughout what remains, and these portions 

 may reasonably be regarded as part of the original structure. 



That the southern triforium, as we now see it, is not original but 

 a substitution for an earlier one, must, I think, be accepted, on a 

 comparison of the two sides of the nave. 



The main columns and the arches between them on both sides 

 of the nave, and the walls above as far as the string course, and 

 also the slender shafts that now stop at that string course, are all 

 of one early period. Those slender shafts seem to have been 

 designed to carry the ribs of a Romanesque stone vault. The 

 southern triforium commences at its east end in uniformity with 

 the whole of the northern triforium. The central tower, the south 

 transept, and the south western tower, were carried up to their full 



* See an account of St. Martin's Church at Dover, liaving two tiers of 

 chapels in the choir, and two eastward apses in the transepts. "The 

 Antiquary " (published by Elliot Stock), February, 1892, p. 69, 



