THE president's ADDRESS. 17 



The narrow aisle which runs between the restored portion 

 of the old Church and the south aisle of the new Choir, is not 

 only a beautiful feature in the general effect, but most ingenious 

 in its structural purpose. The two arcades which form it are 

 tied together above by a series of pannelled walls, and thus the 

 piers practically form the southern buttresses of the new 

 building to receive the thrust of the flying buttresses of the 

 Choir, and, to enable them to do this, heavy gabled buttress tops 

 (which can be seen over the walls of the old aisle) are 

 placed above them for the purpose of diverting the lateral 

 pressure to a vertical direction. The wall above the southern 

 arcade of this narrow aisle is pierced with circular windows, and 

 forms a clerestory of its own. The spacious Crj^pt, which will 

 be applied to many uses, extends under the whole of the Choir 

 and its aisles. And now before it is vaidted over, can be well 

 seen the height of the whole construction and the work which 

 the crypt piers, surmounted by giant blocks of granite, have to 

 perform in supporting the main arcades above. The arcades 

 erected respectively, as memorials of Mr. Fortescue and Lord 

 Eobartes, and the triforium over them are completed, and one 

 of the bays of the triforium can be well seen, enriched 

 with the tooth ornament beautifully executed, and with the 

 colored shafts of Polyphant and Northampton stone introduced. 

 There is ample scope for private munificence in providing for 

 this and many other portions of the building similar shafts of 

 the various ornamental porphyries, serpentine, traps and colored 

 granites to be found in the county. In the Choir, at the summit 

 of the completed work, can be seen the prominent ca];)s from 

 which the vaulting will spring. At the east end the windows 

 of the crypt and those of the lower tier are now visible and 

 the three great lancets above (which will be twice their height) 

 as well as the great windows of the eastern transepts are in 

 course of construction. The general treatment of the windows 

 internally, is very beautiful, consisting as it were of a double 

 arcade— the outer one to be filled with glass, and the inner 

 forming a curtain or open screen. Externally the most complete 

 and therefore the most striking part of the building is the 

 north aisle, with its lofty row of lancet windows, and here you 

 can judge of the admirable eifcct of the warm-tinted Mabe 

 granite which has been used for the ashlar work. At the west 



B 



