CHAPTER II
THE EXTERIOR
The site of Romsey abbey church is not a commanding one. There are some cathedral churches, such as Ely, built on marsh-formed islands which rise considerably above the surrounding flats, and so form conspicuous objects in the landscape seen from far or near; but this is not the case with the abbey church with which we have to deal. The level of its floor does not rise much above the level of the river valley in which it stands, the building is not large or lofty, the parapets of its central tower, about 92 ft. above the ground, rise little above the ridges of the roofs of nave and choir and the north arm of the transept. But it has one great advantage: there is no part of the exterior of the building that cannot be fully examined. Perhaps we might be glad if the space from which it may be seen were here and there a little wider, yet nowhere do we find a garden wall or a building barring our passage as we make the circuit of the exterior of the church. On the north side lies the churchyard stretching a considerable distance to the north, from which an admirable general view is obtained; and again, there is open ground to the west, so that the unique and splendid western façade can be well seen. The space to the south side of the building is more limited; it is entered through an iron gateway running in a line with the west front; should this gate be locked, the space to the east of it may be entered by passing from the inside of the church through either the nuns’ or the abbess’s doorway; when access to this little strip of churchyard has once been gained, it is easy to pass right along the south side of the nave round the south end of the crossing and then to the eastern wall of the ambulatory.
As we follow the winding lanes and streets that lead from the station to the church, we get our first view of it from the road that skirts its northern wall. On the left hand there is a wall running from the north-east corner of the choir, which conceals indeed a few details of the lower part of the east end, but does not hide the two beautiful geometrical windows in the east wall of the choir, inserted within the semicircular headed mouldings of the original Norman windows. We may also see the square-faced termination of the north choir aisle projecting eastward of the wall that forms the east end of the choir. The next noteworthy object is an apsidal chapel or chantry running out from the east wall of the transept, its walls pierced by wide round headed windows. This is also a good point from which to study the clerestory as seen in choir and crossing. The same general arrangement prevails throughout the building, though here and there certain modifications will be noticed. Each clerestory bay on the north side has a window consisting of three arches, the central and wider one is glazed, the two others are blocked with stone. Three tiers (two in each) of round headed windows light the ends of the transepts.
On the north side the windows of the nave aisle are very irregular; this is due to the fact, mentioned in Chapter I, that considerable alterations were made in this part of the church at the beginning of the fourteenth century in order to provide a parish church for the inhabitants of the town. The north wall of the aisle was largely cut away in order to throw this aisle open to the new building erected parallel to the Abbey church, which was to be used as the nave of the parish church. Joining this on the north side was a chantry of the confraternity of St. George which formed a kind of north aisle for the parish church. Windows would of course be required to light this new building and would of necessity be designed in accordance with the style—the Perpendicular—then prevailing. When, after the dissolution of the nunnery, the Abbey church became the church of the parish, the recently erected Perpendicular church would be no longer of any use, and the keeping of it in repair a continual source of expense; hence it was pulled down, the openings in what had been the original north wall of the nave aisle of the Abbey church were walled up, and the mouldings and glass of the Perpendicular windows on the north side of the parish church were inserted in these new walls. Hence we get windows of different heights and levels between the great north door and the transept: recent alterations have still further increased the irregularity. The parish church did not, apparently, extend so far to the west as the Abbey church, hence the two windows to the west of the north door were not interfered with when the parish church was built. It has been already pointed out that the three western bays of the nave are of later date and later in style than the rest of the nave; they were built in the thirteenth century, and consequently all the windows found in this part of the church have pointed heads.
