148 Congress of British Archaeological Association at Devizes. 



the eastern portion of nave and a magnificent south porch, remain. 

 The south front shows a transitional Norman shell, with a clerestory 

 and most of the aisle lights filled with Decorated windows, with 

 large flying buttresses and pinnacles. A flowing pierced parapet is 

 carried above the clerestory, the aisle and porch. The roof is a 

 modern one, of slates, resting on deal timbers of poor scantling set 

 upon a fourteenth century stone vaulting. East and west are ragged 

 fragments of the former extensions. The south porch is the richest 

 feature : it is Transitional, of eight deep oi'ders, of which three are 

 filled with sculptured groups, and the others with interlaced or- 

 naments. The inner doorway is almost equally rich, and in the 

 tympanum and on the walls are bas-reliefs of the " Majesty,^' and 

 the " Apostles.'" The interior forms a noble Church, wherein 

 massive cylindrical piers, with scalloped capitals, and a large tri- 

 forium, all of Transitional character, lead up to a large Decorated 

 clerestory and a groined roof of the same period. The aisles retain 

 their Norman groining and a few Norman windows, and have 

 Perpendicular screens at the eastern ends. Mr. George Patrick 

 read some historical notes on the Abbey, and conducted the visitors 

 over it. He said that no traces of the Saxon Abbey could be found, 

 and it was probably of wood. The earliest record of its foundation 

 was about A.D. 680 when it was dedicated to SS. Peter and 

 Paul, but subsequently it was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary 

 and S. Aldhelm. Britton, in his "Antiquities,^^ refers to a deed of 

 Malraesbury of the time of King Edgar, in which allusion is made 

 to the generally ruined and deserted condition of the buildings ; but 

 such a deed cannot now be found. The arches and existing remains 

 are not of prior date to 1160 or 1170. Porches were not common 

 in the Transititon style of that period, and the south porch before 

 them was almost unique for its exceeding richness and magnificence 

 of ornament; the subjects of the sculptures were taken from the 

 Old and New Testaments. This porch was enlai'ged in the 

 Decorated period by the addition of an outer casing to the walls. 

 The windows of the clerestory were altered to the Decorated style 

 about 1350 — 60, and no traces of Norman work exist internally 

 above the level of the triforium excepting the great arches of the 



