Bells Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey | Page 7

are not continued
across the nave beneath the lancet windows. The buttresses do not quite
rise to the full height of the side walls of the nave, and not a pinnacle is
to be met with anywhere. The sill of the west window is about fifteen
feet from the ground, and from it three tall lancets about four feet wide
rise to a height of nearly thirty feet. They are placed under a comprising
pointed arch, just beneath the point of which, and over the central
lancet, is a cinquefoil opening. The wall finishes in a gable and the
whole west wall is a true termination of the nave which lies behind. We
notice that the glass is set well towards the outside of the openings, and
also that no western doorway exists or ever existed here. The probable
reason of this is that it was a nuns' church, and that the nuns found their
way into the church from the domestic buildings through the doors on
the south side. There is still a doorway (there was formerly a porch) on
the north side, by which, on special occasions, outsiders were admitted
to the north aisle, but as the parishioners had no right of entry into the
nave it was unnecessary to make any provision for them in the form of
a west doorway. From this position at the west of the building we
notice that the roof of the south end of the transept differs from that at
the north end. We can see no tiles above the parapet. Originally, no
doubt, all the roofs had a high pitch, their central ridge rising almost to
the parapet of the tower, but here, as in many another church, when the
timbers of the roof decayed, it was found more economical to decrease
the slope of the roof, and in some cases simply to lay horizontal beams
across the tops of the wall, which of course did not give rise to the
outward thrust of sloping timbers. This appears to have happened at
Romsey; but, since the time when the restoration was begun, all the
roofs save that of the south end of the transept have been raised to their
original pitch. This roof, no doubt, will in due course be altered in a
similar way.

A fine and noteworthy feature in this church is the corbel table which
runs nearly all round it. Here and here only do we find any carving on
the exterior walls, but these corbels are carved into many fantastic
devices: among them we find the very common forms of evil spirits
and lost souls driven away from the sacred building. A legend is
connected with a corbel stone near the west end of the north aisle. It is
fashioned into the likeness of a grindstone and it is handed down by
tradition that once upon a time towards the end of the twelfth century
or the beginning of the thirteenth a nobleman ran away with a
blacksmith's wife, but afterwards repented of his sin and had imposed
on him as penance the completion of the west end of the Abbey church.
The grindstone, emblem of the blacksmith's calling, was, it is said,
placed on the newly erected western bay to commemorate the incident.
[Illustration: SOUTH TRANSEPT, FROM THE WEST]
The #South Side# of the Church differs from the north in some respects:
there is not the same rich arcading along the clerestory level of the nave,
only the real windows appear, not the blind arcading. The windows of
the south aisle have not been altered and re-altered as have been those
of the north aisle. Their sills are set sufficiently high to allow the
cloister arcades to be placed below them, but the cloister alleys have all
disappeared. There is a fine late thirteenth-century door in the second
bay from the western end of the south aisle, and another very beautiful
one known as the Abbess's door at the extreme east end of the wall of
the south nave aisle, in Norman style (see p. 26). The mouldings round
the head are richly ornamented, and two twisted columns stand on each
side of the door. Unfortunately a slanting groove has been cut through
the upper mouldings of it. It is said that at one time a stonemason's shed
stood here, probably the mason employed after the purchase of the
church by the town, to keep the building in repair. We may regret the
mutilation of the doorway, yet at the same time not condemn the
existence of this shed as an unmixed evil, for it covered and protected a
most interesting relic on the west wall of the transept from destruction
by wind and sun and rain--the celebrated #Romsey Rood#, which, as
far as England is