stone about it. Its beauty is due to the exquisite proportions of the various parts. The nave and aisles are of the same length. At the corners of the aisles are rectangular buttresses and two similar ones stand at the ends of the main walls of the nave. String-courses, starting from the aisle buttresses, run below the aisle windows and round the buttresses of the nave, but 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.

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 concerned, is absolutely unique. The illustration reproduced from a negative taken about twenty years ago will give a better idea of the character and position of the rood than verbal description. Since the photograph was taken, a projecting pent house has been very wisely erected over the crucifix to protect it from the weather, but at the same time the addition does not exhibit it to advantage; hence the photograph which shows its previous condition has become valuable. Various opinions as to the date of this crucifix have been held. The first hasty opinion likely to be formed is that it is not older than the wall in which it appears, and therefore must be of Norman date, but careful examination of the stone work will show that it is older than the wall, and has been inserted in its present position, probably at the time when the existing Norman transept was built. Mr. Edward S. Prior, in his “History of Gothic Art in England,” says that it is the best work of its date, in high relief of any size to be found in England, and adds that it is by some considered to be of Saxon date. This seems very probable. It is Byzantine in character. The limbs are clothed in a short tunic; the figure does not hang drooping from the nails, the arms are stretched out horizontally, the head is erect, and the eyes open. It represents not a dead Christ, but Christ reigning on the Tree; above the head the Father’s hand is shown surrounded at the wrist by clouds. This may be taken to represent the pointing out of the beloved Son, in whom the Father is well pleased, or we may suppose that the hand has been extended downwards in answer to the words “Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.” Some clue to the date is given by a drawing in a manuscript in the British Museum—the homilies of Archbishop Ælfric (about 994)—in which a crucifix almost identical with this may be seen. By the side of the figure is a rectangular recess, with small holes at the top to carry off smoke: probably it was customary to keep a lamp or taper constantly burning within this recess. The crucifix, considering its age and position, is in a wonderful state of preservation. How it escaped mutilation in the seventeenth century is hard to explain, for a crucifix would be particularly obnoxious to the Puritan mind, and, standing as this one does almost on the level of the ground, it would seem to have been especially exposed to risk of destruction. Fortunately, however, it has escaped with only the loss of part of the right forearm and shoulder.