DUNSTER PRIORY CHURCH. Y 
already alluded to. They were added to two bays only, 
the third being left distinet as a presbytery. North of 
the high altar, a small chantry was thrown out, which still 
retains its altar. The pier-arches, as I have already im- 
plied, are four-centred; their execution is poor, and on 
neither side can the capitals be referred to the true Somer- 
setshire type; on the north the abacus runs round the 
whole section ; on the south we find a plain form of 
the Devonshire lozenge, a kind of capital which may be 
very satisfactory when exhibited in so splendid a shape as 
those at Lydeard St. Lawrence, but which certainly ıs 
poor enough in its Dunster variety. Both here and in the 
western limb the clerestory is absent throughout, and the 
roofs are all coved, except in the north aisle of the nave. 
Neglect has probably acted as their preserver, as “ restora- 
tion ” would almost infallibly have proved their destruction. 
The best bit of Perpendicular work in the conventual 
portion is the arch between the north transept and the 
north choir aisle, which comes nearer to the more usual 
and better kind of Somersetshire work. 
And now for the part of the building west of the tower, 
namely, the parish church—a church, I may observe, most 
thoroughly complete in all its parts and divisions. The 
splendid roodloft fences off the parochial choir, according 
to the judgment of the arbitrators in 1499; but, more than 
this, the retention of the old Norman arch a little to the 
west of the present lantern actually forms a constructive 
presbytery for the parochial high altar, so that we have all 
the essential parts of an aneient church duly marked off in 
what is, architeeturally,merely the nave ofa larger cruciform 
building. And we may observe that this parish church of 
Dunster, like Westminster and Llandaff, and like the 
primitive basilicas, makes a more marked division between 
