90 The Architecture of Malmesbury Abbey Church. 



shall be nearest the truth in imagining a rich Norman tower, 

 crowned with a timber spire of later date. 



Transepts. — Of the transepts we find remaining the greater por- 

 tion of the west wall of the south wing, and a small portion on the 

 north side. They had no western aisles; their eastern arrangements 

 cannot be made out without disturbing the foundations. They 

 projected two bays beyond the aisles of the nave, with which they 

 communicate by pointed arches. In the triforium range the win- 

 dows assume internally the form of a triplet, but the side arches 

 merely open to a passage, the actual window being single, but 

 much larger and longer than the other Norman windows in the 

 church. Below is the same small window and intersecting arcade 

 beneath as in the nave aisles. 



Presbytery. — Of the eastern limb, forming the presbytery of the 

 church, there remains only the merest fragment attached to the 

 great northern arch of the lantern. We can however see that its 

 general character was exactly the same as the nave, with a little 

 more enrichment in point of detail, there being a small decorative 

 arcade added below the triforium string. As the ritual choir 

 appears to have always retained its original place beneath the lan- 

 tern, we may fairly conclude that the presbyter}? itself never 

 received any addition of length, but had merety a chapel added 

 beyond it. It doubtless remained till its destruction a short Norman 

 structure of three or four bays, as at Peterborough and Romsey. 



Decorated changes : Windows. — The church, as completed some 

 time in the twelfth century, remained untouched during the whole 

 of the next, unless the eastern chapel which had so completely 

 vanished belonged to that period, or unless any addition was then 

 made to the central tower. The main body of the Norman fabric 

 certainly remained unchanged in all its original grandeur during 

 the age which erected Salisbury, completed Romsey, and remodelled 

 Ely and Lincoln. Consequently of Lancet architecture this abbey 

 affords no study whatever, nor yet of tracery in its earlier form, 

 but of the advanced Geometrical forms, contemporary with many 

 Flowing examples, it supplies us with some important specimens. 

 Here, as at St. David's and LlandafF, one great object of the 



