480 Malmesbury Abbey. 



St. Paul, 1 holding a book, and it ia noteworthy that only three other 

 figures hold books, so that these may be identified as St. Matthew, 

 St. James, and St. John, the other apostolic writers (figs. 24 and 25). 



The inner doorway has three members with continuous jambs 

 and arch, all richly carved with conventional foliage (fig. 22). The 

 head is filled with a tympanum, having a flat soffit and radiating 

 joints, upon which is a seated figure of our Lord within a vesica 

 held up by a pair of flying angels. The door is of two valves with 

 plain covering strips to the joints, and has plain strap hinges. The 

 lower part of the west half is formed into a wicket with rounded 

 head, and the whole seems to date from the end of the sixteenth 

 century. 



In the north-east angle of the porch is a roughly inserted recess 

 for the holy-water stock of late fifteenth-century date. 



In the fourteenth century, when so much work was done to the 

 nave, the walls of the porch were thickened to no less than 10ft., 

 large double buttresses were put to the southern angles, and a new 

 two-membered arch without capitals was added on the south side 

 in front of the original Norman one. The old mask terminals from 

 the original label have been reused to the new arch. The casing 

 is carried up to the top of the aisle walls, where it is finished with 

 the same moulded cornice and openwork parapet as to the aisles. 

 The water-shoots in this case are carved into bold gargoyles, of 

 which there are two on the south and one on either of 'the other 

 faces. The buttresses have at the level of the arch springing a 

 deep string-course, above which are sets-off of five courses, and the 

 tops are finished with sets-off of eleven courses to the under-side of 

 the cornice. 



In the sixth bay of the aisle is an inserted doorway of the fifteenth 

 century, containing the original door with tracery in the head. This 

 gives on to a vice of the fourteenth century, which blocks up the 

 aisle window and leads to the room over the porch. This is entered 

 through a low pointed segmental-headed doorway, and has windows 

 in each face. On the south is a two-light window with square 



1 So usually included with the Twelve in place of Mathias, in medieval 

 carvings. 



