Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/351

 THE ABBEY CHUKCII OF DORCHESTER. 275 original west window and doorway of tlic clioir aisle before the addition of that to the nave. The window is, on any sliowing, a difficulty. It is now, as will be rcnicnibered, blocked ; on the eastern side it leaves no trace, but it has a western face of the most remarkable meagreness, quite unlike anything else in the church, and such as one can hardly conceive to have been the original condition of the principal window of a building so highly finished as is this aisle. Moreover, this rude opening, ill proportioned, without moulding, without splay, looks at least as much like an internal as an external face. Yet, as the wall belongs to the eastern and not to the western chapel, the internal face of a strictl}'' external window it can never have been. It might possibly have been designed as a window between the two chapels, left incomplete, or subsequently blocked. Fenestriform jDcrforations of solid walls between the different parts of a church, though rare, are not unknown. A very graceful example occurs in the chancel of Rushdeu church, Northamptonshire. ^ With regard to the doorway, I for a long time supposed, in common with Mr. Addington, and, I believe, Avitli the generally received opinion on the subject, that it was an original external doorway to the eastern chapel, previous to the addition of the western. But repeated examinations have convinced me that it was cut through the wall after the addition of the latter. In character it agrees much more closely with the later work to the west than Avitli the earlier work to the east. Its label is of a late section, which does not occur in the eastern chapel, but forms the external string of the western. In its jambs too we find the same wave- moulding, emplo^^ed in the windows of the latter, but unknown in the older work. Again its position, thrust into a corner, is not what we would expect for an external door- way, which would, moreover, have been for some while a principal entrance into the church, and, as far as effect is concerned, the substitute for a western portal. How different its treatment would have been in such a case, we may judge from the prominent position and ornamental character of that in the existing west front of the aisle. It is clearly thrust into its place to make room for the great altar platform (at q), and is a mere passage from one chapel into the other. 1 Engraved in the Northamptonshire Churches.