The Architecture of Malmesbury Abbey Church. 87 



of a tower terminating the aisle, a rich and good specimen of 

 Norman work ; small relics of the west window and doorway, the 

 former evidently a Perpendicular insertion, cling, as it were, to the 

 larger fragments. From this the imagination at once leaps to the 

 conclusion, that the facade was one of the commonest, and yet 

 (saving its precedence to Peterborough) the most satisfactory type ; 

 the gable between two western towers. The Perpendicular window 

 inserted in the Norman front at once suggests Southwell as the 

 existing instance most likely to recall its general effect. But a 

 little further examination will show that this natural flight of the 

 imagination — in which I must confess to have indulged myself 

 years ago, on my first glimpse of the building — is simply a 

 delusion. An inspection from any point but the direct west will 

 show that the supposed tower has no wall to the south or east, and 

 none to the north but the clerestory of the nave. In fact, the 

 facade is simply a sham ; there is merely a turret, with a blank 

 wall connecting it with the west end of the nave. The original 

 front must have been the exact fac-simile — or, to speak with more 

 chronological accuracy, the prototype — of that of Salisbury. 

 During the Early Gothic period, it is well known that such viola- 

 lations of reality were familiar to our architects, as is shown by 

 the additional cases of Lincoln, Wells, and Newstead ; I have not, 

 however, as yet met with another instance in English Romanesque. 

 Considering the chronology and geography of the case, I think 

 one can hardly doubt but that the Salisbury architect only copied 

 the original error of him of Malmesbury. 



The turret and the connecting wall are perfect up to nearly the 

 height of the nave, but the parapet of the wall and the finish of 

 the turret are destroyed. Both are richly adorned with arcades, 

 with a very gradual increase of ornament towards the top ; but the 

 division into stages is not identical in the turret and the connecting 

 wall. There is only a single window ranging with and resembling 

 those of the aisles. The intersecting arcade is also carried under 

 the window, and it was continued along the west end of the nave, 

 but not across the turret. The arcade is of course interrupted by 

 the west door, but by one west door only, as there are none in the 



