THE EXTERIOR
The site of Romsey abbey church is not a commanding one. There are some
cathedral churches, such as Ely, built on marsh-formed islands which rise
considerably above the surrounding flats, and so form conspicuous objects
in the landscape seen from far or near; but this is not the case with the
abbey church with which we have to deal. The level of its floor does not
rise much above the level of the river valley in which it stands, the
building is not large or lofty, the parapets of its central tower, about
92 ft. above the ground, rise little above the ridges of the roofs of
nave and choir and the north arm of the transept. But it has one great
advantage: there is no part of the exterior of the building that cannot be
fully examined. Perhaps we might be glad if the space from which it may be
seen were here and there a little wider, yet nowhere do we find a garden
wall or a building barring our passage as we make the circuit of the
exterior of the church. On the north side lies the churchyard stretching a
considerable distance to the north, from which an admirable general view
is obtained; and again, there is open ground to the west, so that the
unique and splendid western facade can be well seen. The space to the
south side of the building is more limited; it is entered through an iron
gateway running in a line with the west front; should this gate be locked,
the space to the east of it may be entered by passing from the inside of
the church through either the nuns' or the abbess's doorway; when access
to this little strip of churchyard has once been gained, it is easy to
pass right along the south side of the nave round the south end of the
crossing and then to the eastern wall of the ambulatory.
As we follow the winding lanes and streets that lead from the station to
the church, we get our first view of it from the road that skirts its
northern wall. On the left hand there is a wall running from the
north-east corner of the choir, which conceals indeed a few details of
the lower part of the east end, but does not hide the two beautiful
geometrical windows in the east wall of the choir, inserted within the
semicircular headed mouldings of the original Norman windows. We may also
see the square-faced termination of the north choir aisle projecting
eastward of the wall that forms the east end of the choir. The next
noteworthy object is an apsidal chapel or chantry running out from the
east wall of the transept, its walls pierced by wide round headed windows.
This is also a good point from which to study the clerestory as seen in
choir and crossing. The same general arrangement prevails throughout the
building, though here and there certain modifications will be noticed.
Each clerestory bay on the north side has a window consisting of three
arches, the central and wider one is glazed, the two others are blocked
with stone. Three tiers (two in each) of round headed windows light the
ends of the transepts.
On the north side the windows of the nave aisle are very irregular; this
is due to the fact, mentioned in Chapter I, that considerable alterations
were made in this part of the church at the beginning of the fourteenth
century in order to provide a parish church for the inhabitants of the
town. The north wall of the aisle was largely cut away in order to throw
this aisle open to the new building erected parallel to the Abbey church,
which was to be used as the nave of the parish church. Joining this on the
north side was a chantry of the confraternity of St. George which formed
a kind of north aisle for the parish church. Windows would of course be
required to light this new building and would of necessity be designed in
accordance with the style--the Perpendicular--then prevailing. When, after
the dissolution of the nunnery, the Abbey church became the church of the
parish, the recently erected Perpendicular church would be no longer of
any use, and the keeping of it in repair a continual source of expense;
hence it was pulled down, the openings in what had been the original
north wall of the nave aisle of the Abbey church were walled up, and the
mouldings and glass of the Perpendicular windows on the north side of the
parish church were inserted in these new walls. Hence we get windows of
different heights and levels between the great north door and the
transept: recent alterations have still further increased the
irregularity. The parish church did not, apparently, extend so far to the
west as the Abbey church, hence the two windows to the west of the north
door were not interfered with when the parish church was built. It has
been already pointed out that the three western bays of the nave are of
later date and later in style than the rest of the nave; they were built
in the thirteenth century, and consequently all the windows found in this
part of the church have pointed heads.
[Illustration: THE WEST END AND SOUTH TRANSEPT]
The #West Front#. A unique feature of this church is its west front. It is
one of singular beauty, but its beauty does not depend on any enrichment
of decoration, for a simpler front it would be impossible to find: there
is not a single carved stone about it. Its beauty is due to the exquisite
proportions of the various parts. The nave and aisles are of the same
length. At the corners of the aisles are rectangular buttresses and
two similar ones stand at the ends of the main walls of the nave.
String-courses, starting from the aisle buttresses, run below the aisle
windows and round the buttresses of the nave, but are not continued across
the nave beneath the lancet windows. The buttresses do not quite rise to
the full height of the side walls of the nave, and not a pinnacle is to be
met with anywhere. The sill of the west window is about fifteen feet from
the ground, and from it three tall lancets about four feet wide rise to a
height of nearly thirty feet. They are placed under a comprising pointed
arch, just beneath the point of which, and over the central lancet, is a
cinquefoil opening. The wall finishes in a gable and the whole west wall
is a true termination of the nave which lies behind. We notice that the
glass is set well towards the outside of the openings, and also that no
western doorway exists or ever existed here. The probable reason of this
is that it was a nuns' church, and that the nuns found their way into the
church from the domestic buildings through the doors on the south side.
There is still a doorway (there was formerly a porch) on the north side,
by which, on special occasions, outsiders were admitted to the north
aisle, but as the parishioners had no right of entry into the nave it was
unnecessary to make any provision for them in the form of a west doorway.
From this position at the west of the building we notice that the roof of
the south end of the transept differs from that at the north end. We can
see no tiles above the parapet. Originally, no doubt, all the roofs had a
high pitch, their central ridge rising almost to the parapet of the tower,
but here, as in many another church, when the timbers of the roof decayed,
it was found more economical to decrease the slope of the roof, and in
some cases simply to lay horizontal beams across the tops of the wall,
which of course did not give rise to the outward thrust of sloping
timbers. This appears to have happened at Romsey; but, since the time when
the restoration was begun, all the roofs save that of the south end of the
transept have been raised to their original pitch. This roof, no doubt,
will in due course be altered in a similar way.
A fine and noteworthy feature in this church is the corbel table which
runs nearly all round it. Here and here only do we find any carving on the
exterior walls, but these corbels are carved into many fantastic devices:
among them we find the very common forms of evil spirits and lost souls
driven away from the sacred building. A legend is connected with a corbel
stone near the west end of the north aisle. It is fashioned into the
likeness of a grindstone and it is handed down by tradition that once upon
a time towards the end of the twelfth century or the beginning of the
thirteenth a nobleman ran away with a blacksmith's wife, but afterwards
repented of his sin and had imposed on him as penance the completion of
the west end of the Abbey church. The grindstone, emblem of the
blacksmith's calling, was, it is said, placed on the newly erected western
bay to commemorate the incident.
[Illustration: SOUTH TRANSEPT, FROM THE WEST]
The #South Side# of the Church differs from the north in some respects:
there is not the same rich arcading along the clerestory level of the
nave, only the real windows appear, not the blind arcading. The windows
of the south aisle have not been altered and re-altered as have been those
of the north aisle. Their sills are set sufficiently high to allow the
cloister arcades to be placed below them, but the cloister alleys have all
disappeared. There is a fine late thirteenth-century door in the second
bay from the western end of the south aisle, and another very beautiful
one known as the Abbess's door at the extreme east end of the wall of the
south nave aisle, in Norman style (see p. 26). The mouldings round the
head are richly ornamented, and two twisted columns stand on each side of
the door. Unfortunately a slanting groove has been cut through the upper
mouldings of it. It is said that at one time a stonemason's shed stood
here, probably the mason employed after the purchase of the church by the
town, to keep the building in repair. We may regret the mutilation of the
doorway, yet at the same time not condemn the existence of this shed as an
unmixed evil, for it covered and protected a most interesting relic on the
west wall of the transept from destruction by wind and sun and rain--the
celebrated #Romsey Rood#, which, as far as England is concerned, is
absolutely unique. The illustration reproduced from a negative taken about
twenty years ago will give a better idea of the character and position of
the rood than verbal description. Since the photograph was taken, a
projecting pent house has been very wisely erected over the crucifix to
protect it from the weather, but at the same time the addition does not
exhibit it to advantage; hence the photograph which shows its previous
condition has become valuable. Various opinions as to the date of this
crucifix have been held. The first hasty opinion likely to be formed is
that it is not older than the wall in which it appears, and therefore must
be of Norman date, but careful examination of the stone work will show
that it is older than the wall, and has been inserted in its present
position, probably at the time when the existing Norman transept was
built. Mr. Edward S. Prior, in his "History of Gothic Art in England,"
says that it is the best work of its date, in high relief of any size to
be found in England, and adds that it is by some considered to be of Saxon
date. This seems very probable. It is Byzantine in character. The limbs
are clothed in a short tunic; the figure does not hang drooping from the
nails, the arms are stretched out horizontally, the head is erect, and the
eyes open. It represents not a dead Christ, but Christ reigning on the
Tree; above the head the Father's hand is shown surrounded at the wrist by
clouds. This may be taken to represent the pointing out of the beloved
Son, in whom the Father is well pleased, or we may suppose that the hand
has been extended downwards in answer to the words "Father, into Thy hands
I commend my spirit." Some clue to the date is given by a drawing in a
manuscript in the British Museum--the homilies of Archbishop AElfric (about
994)--in which a crucifix almost identical with this may be seen. By the
side of the figure is a rectangular recess, with small holes at the top
to carry off smoke: probably it was customary to keep a lamp or taper
constantly burning within this recess. The crucifix, considering its age
and position, is in a wonderful state of preservation. How it escaped
mutilation in the seventeenth century is hard to explain, for a crucifix
would be particularly obnoxious to the Puritan mind, and, standing as this
one does almost on the level of the ground, it would seem to have been
especially exposed to risk of destruction. Fortunately, however, it has
escaped with only the loss of part of the right forearm and shoulder.
[Illustration: THE SAXON ROOD]
Passing round the south face of the transept, we come to the #apsidal
chapel# attached to its eastern wall. (See illustration, p. 14.) The
round-headed windows and the original parapet are worthy of notice. Quite
recently a new high-pitched roof has been placed over this chantry. The
illustration shows it before this change was made. Beyond this we come to
the south aisle of the choir, with its three bays, each containing a
round-headed window. The arrangement here is rather peculiar. The east
wall of the choir, containing the two fourteenth-century windows side by
side, rises just to the east of the second bay; the outer eastern wall of
lower height at the extremity of the third bay is the east wall of the
ambulatory or retro-choir. This was originally pierced by two arches,
leading into the two parallel chapels, dedicated respectively to St. Mary
and St. Ethelfleda, which were built in the fourteenth century, taking the
place of two chapels, in Norman style, only about half their length
measured from west to east. These two chapels were pulled down after the
parish bought the church, to save the expense of keeping them in repair.
The two arches leading into them were built up, but the geometrical east
windows of the chapels were inserted in them, and now give light to the
retro-choir. The ends of the choir aisles are apsidal within, but flat
without. This arrangement leads to great thickness at the corners of the
walls.
At one time there was a detached campanile for the bells of Romsey. This
was pulled down in 1625 and the bells placed in the wooden cage erected
for them on the roof of the central tower. At this time there were six
bells only, but in 1791 they were, according to one account, taken down
and sold, and a fresh peal of eight bells cast for the church. According
to another account the six bells were melted down, fresh metal added, and
from this the larger peal of eight bells was cast. It is said to be in
perfect condition now, the tenor bell weighing 26 cwt.
[Illustration: THE CHOIR, SOUTH SIDE]
The stone of which the Abbey Church is built, was quarried at Binstead, in
the Isle of Wight. These quarries are now entirely worked out, so that no
stone can be obtained thence for repairs.
It is not to be expected that the restoration has met with universal
approval, but it may be truly said that the alterations have been far less
drastic than in many churches, and that the interior of the Abbey Church,
as we see it to-day, has much the appearance which it had after it had
become the parish church of Romsey about the middle of the sixteenth
century.
[Illustration: THE NAVE, NORTH SIDE]