478 Malmesbury Abbey. 



are much below the Norman ones. The windows are each of three 

 lights of peculiar design,having a large opening in the head evidently 

 to contain seraphim. The jambs externally are plain splays, and 

 the arches of two chamfered members. Internally there is a 

 moulded member following the tracery, and a wide splay back to 

 the vaulting shafts. These windows have been filled with inferior 

 modern glass. 



In the fourth bay of the north aisle, which was a small chapel, 

 a large three-light window was placed in the fourteenth century, 

 having its head within a small gable above the aisle parapet (fig. 27). 

 The vaulting inside is ingeniously arranged, having had the field 

 of the northern qnarter of the original vault removed and a new 

 ribbed vault thrown off the old diagonal to clear the new window. 

 The north aisle was capped by cornice and parapet similar to the 

 clearstory above. 



In the first, fourth, fifth, and last bays of the south aisle the 

 windows have been divided by a mullion with cusped lights and a 

 quatrefoil in the head put in towards the end of the fourteenth 

 century. The eighth bay was blocked when the porch was cased, 

 but the window was again opened out when the tracery was inserted 

 in the other windows and similar tracery put to this. All the 

 windows on the north side except the fourth have similar inserted 

 tracery. In the easternmost window ar. preserved some fragments 

 of fourteenth-century grisaille, the only vestige of old glass that 

 remains ; the rest seems to have been destroyed in the Rebellion. 

 " Mr, Weekes of the Eoyal Society remembers curious painted glass 

 windows before the Warres in the Abbey-Church." 1 



Projecting from the seventh bay is the great south porch, which 

 has been the main entrance to the church from the time it was 

 built. Externally the walls have been cased with later work, but 

 the magnificent arch of entrance, the interior of the porch, and 

 the inner doorway remain much as the Norman builders left 

 them. The entrance arch is of no less than eight members, unbroken 

 between jambs and arch, and each is richly carved (fig. 20), The 

 outermost, the third, fifth, and innermost members are decorated 

 1 Wiltshire Collections, p. 257. 



