Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/220

160 ON THE ARCHITECTURE OF minster. In what that character consists, it is hard to say, but very easy to feel; ^ but it is clear that it is not possessed by Dorchester Abbey, while it is possessed in its fulness by many churches of the same, or even a much smaller size. We have the phenomenon of a church which, by its dimensions, might rank with Romsey and Bath, which not only is not cruciform, but which has no clerestory in any part of its length of above two hundred feet. From this it is clear that it does not so much as resemble a parish church even of the second order, much less such vast piles as Boston and St. Michael's, Coventry, which exhibit the parochial type on what I cannot but consider as an exaggerated scale. Dorchester is, in fact, a church of the very rudest and meanest order, as far as outline and ground-plan are concerned, developed to abbatial magnitude, and adorned with all the magnificence that architecture can lavish upon individual features. A nave with a single south aisle, a choir with an aisle on each side, a projecting presbytery, and a low and massive western tower, constitute the whole building. The length is unbroken by tower or transept; within, triforium, clerestory, and vault, are unknown. That such a pile is beautiful, few will argue; but it is strange, and awful, and solemn in the highest degree; and the inquirer might go far enough before he finds anything to surpass the consummate beauty of the choir arcades, or which, for singularity at least, if not for elegance, can be compared with the vast and wonderful east window which now again terminates the whole vista in renovated grandeur. I remarked above that, though England has hardly any building which can be compared with this abbey, several examples, more or less analogous, may be found in Wales. There are not wanting points of resemblance between it and Llandaff Cathedral, as I have drawn out at some length in the remarks I have lately put forth on that church. And I have there remarked that where a church was, like Dorchester, at once parochial and conventual, it was not uncommon for the parochial element to prevail, and to give most of its character to the whole building.^ This is not uncommon in England, and still more frequent in Wales. Since I wrote

2 See the Builder for 1852, p. 4, 117. ^ Architecture of Llandaff Cathedral, p. 9.