The South Side of the church introduces many interesting varieties of work. These may well be followed in the course of this description from the west to the east end.
The lowest part of the south-west tower presents a treatment different from that on the west side. There is here a
doorway, and an additional window. Both are round-arched. The doorway is one of the most notable pieces of beautiful design on all the exterior of the building. It is treated solely with variations of the well-known chevron ornament. The cut work upon it is in no case at all deep, but the total effect is truly delightful. There is none of the dead, formal regularity invariable in modern attempts to imitate this type of work. The voussoirs of the arch are not all of equal size in each order, and on one member the chevrons are reversed on opposite sides of the centre stone except for one accidental intermission. The abacus, nearly six inches deep, has a flat upper part on which a continuous diaper of Greek crosses has been cut. The lower part is a plain, hollowed chamfer moulding. Though the small columns in the jambs are new, and also parts of the inner reveal of the jamb, yet the old carved capitals are still in position and also the bases. These capitals bear distinct traces of Byzantine feeling in the design of them. Above the doorway is a billet-moulded string-course, which stops against the circular shafts by the buttresses, and forms the sill of the window. The design of this opening is like that of the one over it in the next stage, which is similar to that in the same position on the west face of the tower. But the abaci of its capitals run from the jambs across to the buttresses, as is the case with those of the doorway. The billet-moulded sill evidently passed round the tower completely, before the addition of the angle buttresses, since it appears again on the north buttress of the west front of the same tower; and the obvious inference is that there was once a window also on the west in this same stage at the same level. The window immediately below the upper division of the tower is of the same date and character exactly as the one on the west in the like place; and it should be noticed that the sills of the upper windows run on as string-courses, which are continued round the circular angle-shafts of the buttresses.
Passing eastward from the tower, the external Roof of the nave becomes visible. The irregularly waved line of the ridge where the lead rolls meet, as it were, against the sky, is a pretty indication of the presence of the aged timbers underneath that support it above the walls.
The oldest part of the building to be seen from this point
is the strip of walling at the clerestory level. The twelfth-century round-arched windows are there almost complete. In detail they are like those of the tower. Two of them, those in the fourth and fifth bays from the tower, have had later work inserted in the same openings.
The crest of the wall between the west and the central tower was renewed in the fourteenth century. It consists of a parapet with a weathered coping for the top course of stonework, so that the water might not rest upon it and percolate through the walls. Three courses below this is a simply moulded string-course, and immediately beneath is the cusped arcade supported on the course of detached moulded and shaped corbels. For five feet below the bottom of the corbels the newer part of the wall is continued. It will be interesting later to notice the way in which the parapet on the north side of the nave has been dealt with. The reason for the presence of so much new walling at this level is no doubt to be found in the fact that the roof timbers at the time of the second fire were carried down over the walls.
The water from the gutter behind the parapet is carried out on to the backs of the flying-buttresses by means of holes cut through the stonework. Into these pipes are passed which convey the water through to the open gutter channels of the buttresses. The backs of the raking buttresses, though they are sharply weathered to throw the water from them quickly, are also covered with lead as a further protection. These buttresses have carried the thrust of the vaults down-wards with safety for about six hundred years. But the presence of two distinct arches under each of them indicates that they have been altered a little since first they were put up. This was done when it became necessary to carry their thrust farther out because of the new chapels that were added long after the vaults were built over the nave. At the foot of each raking slope is a horizontal piece which runs out until it comes in contact with the octagon pinnacles of the vertical exterior buttresses. It should be noted that where the flying-buttresses meet the vertical wall of the clerestory there is in some cases a portion of the flat buttressing of the twelfth century visible.
Between the buttresses of the chapels are four two-light windows, The outer arch of each of these windows is a
beautiful example of late thirteenth-century moulded detail. The main line of the arch curve is excellent, and the whole opening between the head, jambs, and sill is beautifully proportioned. Some fifteenth century tracery remained in these windows until it was replaced by the present modern work. The outer arch is in two orders, which are carried by slight attached shafts, some of which are renewals. The capitals to these are carved, and have square abaci, rounded at the angle, as they pass over the capitals. These abaci, which are finely moulded, are not more than about two and a half inches in depth. The bases of the jamb-shafts are characteristic of the period during which this work was done. There are two small rounded mouldings, and one larger one. These rest on the square, lower part, of the base. Immediately below the sill is a string-course; and this, as well as the projecting base to the whole wall, is continued from the side of the tower buttress eastward. Each is returned round the four buttresses till it stops against the outer wall of the south walk of the cloisters. The vertical buttresses here were originally completed with a weathering at a point about half-way up their present height; and upon this old weathering the upper and later part of the buttress has been added. This was probably done during the fourteenth century, about the time that the adjoining parapet of the aisles, the parapet of the nave, and the re-working of the upper part of the flying-buttresses was undertaken. This change in the design involved the removal of the range of pointed gables, by which the roof over each bay of the aisle was completed southward. Traces of the earlier gable copings are still bedded in their original places in the walling. Upon three of these buttresses are remains of the old gargoyles by which the water from the roofs was carried off. The use of these is now superseded by the cheap and mean-looking rain-water heads and pipes.