A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



doorways, that on the north now leading to the eastern 

 chapel of the north transept, and that on the south 

 side being blocked ; they must have served as the 

 oitia presbyterii, the upper entrances to the quire, 

 while the church was used by the canons. 



The tower, which is of two stages, the upper stage 

 rising but little above the ridges of the nave and 

 transept roofs, stands on four semicircular arches, 

 having a roll between two square orders, and a label 

 ornamented with billets. Over them at the level of 

 the belfry floor is a projecting course of masonry with 

 the same ornament. The jambs have central half- 

 round shafts and engaged shafts in the outer order, 

 and the capitals are chiefly of the volute type, others 

 being scalloped. The southern arch is blocked up, 

 and the loss of the south transept has weakened the 

 tower so that the east and west arches have cracked 

 slightly, but in the main the work is in very good 

 preservation. The north transept was designed for a 

 vault of a single bay, the vaulting-shafts remaining at 

 the angles, but there is nothing to show that it was 

 ever completed, the north window of the transept 



tower, and at the south-west angle of the transept is 

 a modern doorway. 



The nave is of the plainest character, with four 

 round-headed windows on the north and a central 

 doorway, of which only the inner arch now remains. 

 It was set in a gabled projection 1 9 ft. long, and must 

 have been a conspicuous feature, but has been entirely 

 effaced on the outside. In the south wall are five 

 round-headed windows, the lower parts of the first 

 four having been partly blocked by the cloister roof, 

 while the fifth is completely blocked, and from its 

 position within the lines of the western range of 

 claustral buildings must always have been so. The 

 eastern and western procession doors to the cloister 

 are also blocked up, and there is evidence of a slight 

 change of position in the eastern door, two round- 

 headed arches remaining in the wall. The monastic 

 quire must clearly have been to the east of these 

 doors, and therefore under the tower, whose side 

 arches it probably completely filled. Marks of a rood 

 screen and loft are to be seen at the east of the nave, 

 and low in the north wall at the east end is a small 



PORTCHESTER CHURCH 



PC*J of Feet 

 c. 1133 I6*cent. and later 



indeed proving the contrary, if it is in its original 

 position, as its head is too high to be cleared by the 

 vault. 



On the east of the transept is a rectangular chapel 

 rebuilt in 1864 on the old foundations, and used as a 

 vestry, and entered through a doorway on the south, 

 its west arch towards the transept being blocked by 

 a modern stone screen. This arch is ornamented 

 on the west side with a hatched label and zigzag on 

 the outer order. Near the south-east angle of the 

 transept are traces of the passage from the upper 

 entrance to the quire, which led through a doorway 

 to the transept at the back of the north-eastern pier 

 of the tower. 



On the lower part of the north wall of the 

 transept is a plain wall arcade of which only the 

 arches are old, and in the north and west walls 

 are single round-headed windows with jamb shafts, 

 labels with lozenge ornament, and a radiating pattern 

 on the arches, much like that in the earlier work at 

 Petersfield. At the north-west angle is a circular stair 

 in a projecting square turret, leading by a passage over 

 the ceiling of the transept to the upper stage of the 



1 60 



' SouthTranscpt 



window which must have lighted the altar here under 

 the loft. The nave is wider than the presbytery or 

 tower, though the church is accurately cruciform, the 

 extra width being obtained by thinning the north 

 and south walls in the nave, while keeping their outer 

 faces on the same plane as those of the tower. 



The west wall of the nave, on the other hand, is 

 5 ft. thick without the wide buttresses, and has a 

 central doorway of three orders with twisted shafts, 

 and above it a wall arcade of three bays, the central 

 bay pierced with a window. Both doorway and 

 arcade are very richly ornamented, and the whole is a 

 valuable example of a twelfth-century west front almost 

 unaltered. 



The fittings of the church are mostly modern, but 

 the nave roof is old, of trussed rafter form. In 1888 

 a number of fifteenth-century oak bench-ends were 

 found serving as footings for the pews in the nave, 

 and one of them is now in the chancel. On the south 

 wall of the nave is a board with the arms of Queen 

 Elizabeth, dated 1577, and on the north another with 

 those of Queen Anne, 1710. 



The font at the west of the nave is an unusually fine 



