Page:St. Botolph's Priory, Colchester (1917).djvu/26

18 had quadripartite groined vaults of plastered rubble, with semi-circular transverse arches of a single square order in plastered brickwork, but all have fallen except a section at the east end of the north aisle and a transverse arch in the west bay of the south aisle. The transverse arches spring directly from the capitals of the nave piers, but there are pilaster responds of two orders on the aisle walls, the transverse arches springing from the first order and the groins of the vault from the second. In the north aisle there is a doorway in the fourth bay from the west, of two orders with detached shafts in the outer order: the inner arch is semicircular of plain red brick, but the outer order with its capitals and part of the shafts has been destroyed. Over the doorway is a small window of original work, but except here, and in the eastern remaining bay of this aisle, two-light windows have been inserted in each bay, one late in the thirteenth century, and the others about 1340. Only one of these windows, that in the third bay from the east, retains its tracery, though the jambs and arched heads of the windows in the adjoining bays east and west have survived. West of the doorway the fourteenth-century window arches have fallen, but patches of original plaster with remains of colour decoration remain on the splayed jambs, and have been protected from the weather. There are other remains of wall painting in this aisle; part of an arcade of late date is to be seen below the window sill in the third bay from the east. The exterior of the nave, to judge from the remains of the north aisle, was very simply treated, the ornament being reserved for the west front, which was flanked by towers on the north and south, and even in its ruined state is a fine and impressive composition. There are three doorways, set centrally with the nave and aisles; the northern of the three, together with the west end of the north aisle, is ruined almost to the ground level, but the others are nearly complete. The middle doorway, wider and higher than the others, is of five orders, the outer order having a plain roll moulding and the four others a double line of chevron ornament; all these details are worked in a good limestone and are very well preserved, the individual stones being small and used with great economy for the ornamental detail only, the plain surfaces of each order above the ornament being built in brick, originally, of course, plastered. The inner order has pairs of half-shafts of which little more than the bases are left, the next three orders having detached stone shafts with richly carved cushion capitals and square-edged abaci chamfered beneath. The outer order has single half-shafts like those of the inner order. The southern doorway is of four