A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



gable of the transept stands almost complete, though 

 in the destructive clutch of the ivy, and has a wide 

 lancet opening above the vault, formerly of three 

 lights, which existed within the last thirty years, 

 and on the outer face a small stone bell-cot, the bell 

 in which must have been rung from the north end 

 of the dorter. 



The nave is of eight bays, and retains the walls of 

 its aisles and its west wall, but as in the case of the 

 chancel its arcade and clearstory have been entirely 

 destroyed. In each bay on the south side is a wide 

 arched recess, having in the head, above the line of 

 the cloister roof, a window of three trefoiled lights. 

 There is a similar recess in the east bay on the north 

 side, but not in the other bays, and the windows on 

 the north, the first three of which from the east 

 retain their tracery of three trefoiled lights, are longer 

 than those on the south because of the absence of any 

 building on the outside. The recesses on the south 

 side are caused by the thickening of the wall to take 

 the thrust of the aisle vaults, a row of external 

 buttresses like those on the north being impossible 

 here on account of the cloister. At Beaulieu and 

 Hailes the recesses are on the outer face of the wall, 

 towards the cloister. In the south wall are remains 

 of three doorways, the largest being in the east bay ; 

 it was the principal entrance to the church from the 

 monastic cloister, and had an arch of three orders with 

 pairs of marble shafts in each jamb. It was mutilated 

 and blocked up after the Suppression, and a second 

 doorway cut in the fourth bay. Of the third or 

 western procession doorway in the eighth bay very 

 slight traces are to be seen, and nothing can be said 

 as to its details. 



In the west wall of the nave is a wide central door- 

 way, which has had double doors, and over it a large 

 window which has lost its mullions and tracery. 3 " 

 The gable wall over it has been rebuilt with a level 

 top in red brick. At the ends of the aisles are small 

 west doorways, that on the north with a chamfered 

 arch and moulded label, while the other opens to a 

 diagonal passage opening southwards to a former 

 passage along the west wall of the cloister. Above 

 each door is a trefoiled two-light window, with a 

 quatrefoil in the head. It seems that the aisle vault 

 in the west bay of the north aisle was never built, 

 owing to a change of design in the process of building, 

 and it may be that none of the vaults of the aisles 

 were completed. The evidences of slow and inter- 

 mittent building are clearly to be seen in the church, 

 by the changes in details. The presbytery and east 

 piers of the tower belong to the earliest work, and 

 the south transept was next begun. In addition to 

 the differences in the profiles of the bases, the later 

 date may be seen in the vaulting shafts, the foliate 

 corbels to those on the west side of the transept being 

 of late thirteenth-century style. The five eastern 

 bays of the south aisle followed, and then the western 

 piers of the crossing, the north transept, and five 

 bays of the north aisle. The two western bays of 

 the nave and the west front belong to the end of the 

 thirteenth century and early part of the fourteenth. 



Very slight traces of the actual arrangements of the 

 church remain. The monks' quire was partly under 

 the tower, but did not come as far as the eastern 

 piers, and the destruction of the nave arcades has 



made it impossible to say how far it extended down 

 the nave. 



The lay brothers' quire must have been in the 

 western part of the nave,' and their approach to the 

 church was by the passage outside the west wall of the 

 cloister and through the south-west doorway. By the 

 time that the church was being finished they were a 

 far less important item of a Cistercian house than in 

 the twelfth century, and the provision made for them 

 here at Netley may be instructively compared with 

 that at Fountains or Furness. After the Suppression 

 the nave and south transept were turned into living 

 rooms, the first three bays of the nave becoming a 

 large hall, with a doorway from the cloister in the 

 fourth bay and another opposite to it in the north 

 aisle. The arrangement suggests that the screens 

 were here, with the kitchen, &c. to the west, and 

 there are marks of a stone bench, 3 ft. high from the 

 floor, in three of the four western bays of the south 

 aisle. The south-east doorway of the nave was 

 walled up, and that in the south transept made 

 instead of it, and there are traces of the bonding of a 

 brick wall, apparently the east wall of the hall, just 

 west of the line of the western crossing piers. The 

 louth transept shows many marks of damage caused by 

 the insertion of floors, and the marks left by the 

 western screens of the chapels are easily to be dis- 

 tinguished from the careless hacking of the later work- 

 men. On the other hand it must be noted that the 

 arcades in the south transept, and the tracery of the 

 windows in the three east bays of the north aisle of 

 the nave, owe their preservation to the fact of their 

 inclusion in the sixteenth-century house. 



The cloister, on the south side of the church, is 

 approximately a square of 1 1 5 ft., being a little wider 

 on the west than the east. No traces of the inner 

 walls of its four alleys are now to be seen, but they 

 were covered with wooden pent roofs, many of the 

 corbels for which remain. On the east side of the 

 cloister are the south transept, vestry, chapter-house, 

 inner parlour, and novices' room, with the great dorter 

 over. There are two book cupboards, one in the 

 west wall of the south transept, and partly underlying 

 the night stair to the dorter, the other, of much 

 larger size, taking up the west bay of the vestry, 

 and originally cut off from it by a masonry wall 1 5 in. 

 thick, of which the traces are still to be seen on the 

 plaster of the north and south walls. It opened to 

 the cloister by a pointed doorway with a large pierced 

 trefoil over, inclosed in a moulded arch with roof 

 shafts. The vestry is vaulted in three bays, the wall 

 cells and cross-ribs being nearly semicircular, and has 

 an east window of two lancets under a semicircular 

 head, with wide internal splays and a segmental rear- 

 arch. In the east bay is a tall recess on the north 

 side, rebated for a wooden frame, and on the south 

 side a trefoiled piscina with recesses in the jambs on 

 each side, and a square rebated locker to the west of 

 it. On the east wall below the window are marks of 

 the altar formerly here, and its plan is marked on the 

 floor in broken mediaeval tiles. In the second bay is 

 the door from the church on the north side, and on 

 the south a wide recess like that in the east bay, 

 rebated for a frame ; both recesses contained wooden 

 cupboards for vestments, &c. The south wall of the 

 west bay has been broken through in post-monastic 



!a Sec below, p. 476. 



* See Mr. Brakipear'i plan of Hailes Abbey in Arch. Journ. Iviii, 350. 



474 



