Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/759

 1869.] The 31insters of England. 617 opposite extremity ; but the library, chapter-house, and cloisters, being im- mediately contiguous, the lower part is excluded from view. It is supported by four vast buttresses, each terminating in a plain octagon tower, crowned by a ball. All the' lower part is occupied by the Chapel of St. Blaize, or St. Catha- rine, which is now used as a vestry The wall immediately over this chapel is pierced by a range of six narrow pointed windows, above which are three large windows, divided into two lights below, and having a circular light in the head ; the exterior masonry of all these windows is modern, and wholly unornamented. The next compartment displays the great rose, or marigold window, which was constructed, about the year 1814, by Mr. Thomas Gayfere, the Abbey mason, under the superin- tendence of Benjamin Wyatt, Esq. All the ancient forms were preserved in the rebuilding, by working from the origi- nal parts ; but the latter, if the report made to Bishop Atterbury by Sir Chris- topher Wren, be in this instance correct, could not have been of any great age, for he mentions this window, as having been "well rebuilt," about forty years before the date of his report, which was drawn up in 1713. The centre is formed by a small circle, including a quatre- foil, within which is the date, 1814; from this sixteen large leaves extend to the periphery ; each being sub-divided into a double range of cinque-foil lights in the upper part, and a single range below. In the head of every leaf is a quatre-foil, with smaller lights ; and in the angles between them are trefoils. The spandrels on the outer part of the gi"eat circle are occupied by small cir- cles, including quatre-foils, with cinque- foil leaves at the sides. A frieze, charged with grotesque animals and human heads, ranges over the window, and above that appears the high-pitched gable-end of the roof. Between the two westernmost buttresses a deep and strong, semicircular arch expands over the east wall of the cloisters, and has been supposed to constitute a part of the church erected by King Edward the Confessor. Some singular, but ingenious pecu- liarities, arising from the contiguity of the cloisters, are observable on the south side of this edifice ; these arose from the means necessary to be em- ployed to sustain the walls, and, at the same time, to admit the intervention of such a considerable space as the breadth of the cloisters, between the suprestruc- ture and the abutments. The first six buttresses westward from the transept have their bases within the cloister green, and are each connected with the walls of the church by four arch-but- tresses of considerable magnitude, the uppermost of which extends across the aisle. The three other buttresses ad- join the wall like those on the north side ; and, like those also, all the but- tresses are graduated, but these are un- ornamented, and without niches. The West Front consists of a central facade, in the pointed style, flanked by two anomalous square towers, the mod- ern parts of which were designed by Sir Christopher Wren, and carried to their present height of 225 feet, in the early part of the last century. In the middle of the facade is a deeply-recessed central porch, with a vaulted and ribbed roof, but the ribs are greatly decayed and mutilated. The walls, which grad- ually contract to the doorway, are wrought into compartments of paneled tracery. Two blank shields, projecting from sunk panels, with a large niche and pedestal over them, ornament each side of the porch. The space above the great arch is filled by ten other niches, sepa- rated by small buttresses, and terminat- ing in cone-shaped canopies, truncated Over the latter is a modern cantilever cornice ; and between that and the para- pet projecting before the great west window is a frieze, enriched with various shields of royal arms. The great win- dow is admirably proportioned, and its