Bells Cathedrals: A Short Account of Romsey Abbey | Page 9

said to be in perfect condition now, the tenor bell weighing 26 cwt.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, SOUTH SIDE]
The stone of which the Abbey Church is built, was quarried at Binstead,
in the Isle of Wight. These quarries are now entirely worked out, so that
no stone can be obtained thence for repairs.
It is not to be expected that the restoration has met with universal

approval, but it may be truly said that the alterations have been far less
drastic than in many churches, and that the interior of the Abbey
Church, as we see it to-day, has much the appearance which it had after
it had become the parish church of Romsey about the middle of the
sixteenth century.
[Illustration: THE NAVE, NORTH SIDE]
CHAPTER III
THE INTERIOR
Immediately after entering the Abbey Church by the north door, it will
be well, in order to get a general idea of its size and beauty, to take
one's stand close to the west wall under the large lancet window. There
is nothing to break the view from the west to the east walls of choir and
ambulatory, a total distance of about 250 feet; for the wooden screen
which separates the choir from the crossing is too light and open to
break the vista. It will be noticed that with the exception of the western
bays of the nave, and the three-light geometrical windows in the eastern
wall of the choir, and the two windows of the ambulatory, everything is
Norman or transitional in character. The aisles have stone quadripartite
vaulting except in the added bays to the west, where the vaulting is
merely plaster. The high roof, like many in Norman churches, is a
wooden one, for Norman builders rarely dared to throw a stone vault
over the nave or choir, for as yet the principle that allows such a piece
of engineering to be carried out with safety, namely, the balancing of
thrust and counter-thrust, by means of vaulting ribs and external flying
buttresses, had not been fully realized in England. In some few cases it
is true that late Norman vaults may be found, but more often where
stone vaults exist in Norman churches they were added in after times.
In Romsey Abbey one of the most noteworthy features is that very little
alteration was made in the church when once it was built. True there
was a westward extension in the thirteenth century, and some insertion
of windows in the fourteenth century, but nothing of the original church
seems to have been swept away, as was so often the case, to make room
for extensions and alterations.

The #Nave# has seven bays, to the east of which is the transept, and
beyond it the choir, which has three bays. Further to the east, as we
shall find in due course, may be seen the low vaulted retro-choir or
ambulatory of one bay.
[Illustration: CYLINDRICAL PIER: NORTH NAVE ARCADE]
It is well known that Norman choirs were generally short, and that
when we find a considerable length of building eastward of the crossing,
this eastward extension was made in the thirteenth or fourteenth
century; the new building being often begun to the east of the Norman
choir, and the choir left untouched until the eastern part was finished,
when very frequently the old Norman choir and presbytery were
demolished, and the new work joined on to the transept by masonry in
the later style.
The inconvenience of a short architectural choir was very often avoided
by bringing the ritual choir westward into the nave, an arrangement
which exists up to the present day at the Abbey Church at Westminster.
This seems to have been done at Romsey, the choir extending across
the transept as far as the third pillar of the nave, counting from the east.
But although the eastern bays of the nave and all of those of the choir
are Norman, yet they are by no means of an ordinary type. There is
much about this church that is unique, and certain arrangements are
found only here and at St. Friedeswide's, now Christ Church, Oxford,
Dunstable Priory, and Jedburgh Abbey. There is no strict uniformity:
one bay frequently differs from another in its details.
[Illustration: THE CLERESTORY OF NAVE: SOUTH SIDE]
[Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH BAYS OF THE NAVE]
It may be well at the outset to point out that of the three horizontal
divisions of the nave the main arcading occupies approximately
three-sevenths of the total height of the wall, while the triforium and
clerestory each occupy about two-sevenths.
[Illustration: THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHOIR]

[Illustration: TRIFORIUM ARCH IN THE NORTH TRANSEPT]
The three western bays are early English in date and style, but they
differ considerably from the typical early English of Salisbury; we do