Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/168

138 The best, indeed the only English, example which occurs to me at this moment, of a church with a semicircular apse still remaining attached to the east face of each transept, is to be found in the Abbey church of Romsey. Tewkesbury retains one in the south transept, the northern one being occupied by other buildings. Of instances in Normandy, Mr. Cotman and Mr. Petit supply me with two noble ones, St. Georges Bocherville, and St. Nicholas, at Caen, in the latter of which the apse is remarkable for a high stone roof. Of cases where only vestiges remain of what has been, I may mention the two Metropolitan Cathedrals and that of Chichester, in all of which, Professor Willis has shown that the same arrangement as Romsey existed in the original Norman churches before their enlargement. In Leominster Priory, too, the recent excavations have brought to light the foundations of such an apse attached to the south transept; the northern one has not yet been explored. In fact, the whole arrangement of Leominster, with the apses attached to the transepts, and the apsidal chapels radiating round the presbytery, is identical with that which Professor Willis pointed out as having been the original state of Chichester.

From these instances, where something has been substituted for the apse, we may proceed to another class, in which the apse has been destroyed without any substitute being added, I think whenever we meet with a blocked arch, or the signs of a gable, against the east wall of a Norman transept, Ave may fairly set it down as testifying the previous existence of such an apsidal chapel. Examples occur in Southwell Minster, and in Leonard Stanley Priory, Gloucestershire, and I may add several more from Sussex.

My attention was first drawn to the subject, as regards small churches, by visiting West Ham, one of the two mediæval churches which stand at either end of the Roman fortress at Pevensey, and of which I flatter myself that I carried away as accurate an account as I could, while myself and my sketch-book were deluged by the torrents of rain which accompanied my visit. The first result of this pursuit of knowledge under difficulties was to observe a blocked semicircular arch in the east wall of the south