It is necessary to remember that the ruins only consist of the original nave, and though not of large proportions, they are well worthy of careful reverential inspection, for the decaying walls show workmanship of a very high architectural order, chiefly of the period of transition between the passing Romanesque and the coming Gothic Early English. The north wall of the north aisle, with two shattered piers, and the south aisle with all its columns still remain standing. The eastern ends of the two aisles—where they formerly communicated with the transepts—are filled up with windows, each resting on a wall. This is also the case with the east end of the wrecked building, for the present east window is modern, having taken the place of one which was blown in in the year 1816, and which had previously filled the arch of the great central tower, destroyed with the transepts and choir in the 16th century. Some considerable evidences are visible of earlier work at the east end of the south aisle beyond the mass of masonry which marks the royal vault. Here a walled-in doorway, which once communicated with the cloister, is of Norman work of not later than 1160, having a round headed arch with zig-zag and billet moulding. The masonry adjoining it is evidently of the same period. Again a more developed Early English style is shown in the exterior of the noble west façade which consists of a deeply recessed portal, having eight shafts on either side with elaborate mouldings and two peculiar windows above, in character somewhat allied to the Perpendicular. Over the doorway is the following inscription bearing the date of Charles I:—
He shall build ane house
for my name, and I will
stablish the throne
of his Kingdom
for ever.
BASILICAM HANC SEMI
RUTAM CAROLUS REX
OPTIMUS INSTAURAVIT
ANNO DONI
CIↃ IↃXXXIII.
The seven buttresses which support the south wall from the outside were built by Abbot Crawfurd in the 15th century. Of the entire range of conventual buildings devoted to the domestic uses of the canons, not a vestige has been left. It is concluded, however, that the wall of the south aisle of the nave of the church, and the west wall of the adjoining transept formed, as was not uncommon in monastic edifices, two sides of the great cloister, leaving the others to the chapter house, refectory, and other principal apartments of the establishment. Doorways led into the cloister from the eastern and western extremities of the south aisle, one of these entrances being still in excellent preservation. The existing royal palace undoubtedly covers to a great extent the site of the domestic buildings of the abbey; but a large portion of these extended further towards the east than any part of the present great quadrangle. The choir and transepts of the abbey church have, as we have already seen, also disappeared, and the nave as it now stands, ruined and roofless, is itself almost the sole record of that which is gone—that sacred edifice which, when entire, was an august and magnificent building.