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ABBEY.]

GREAT WEST TOWERS-ABBOT'S LODGING.

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Sir R. Colt Hoare says, that when his friend Mr. Wyndham made the tour of Wales, in the year 1777, the Eastern front of the abbey was standing, but has since fallen; and its design is now only preserved by the view engraven of it in his book. When he accompanied Mr. Coxe, in the year 1800, to make drawings for his historical tour through Monmouthshire, the western front still retained its superior elegance: in the year 1801, one of the fine windows gave way; and two years later he was a mournful eye-witness, not only to the total downfall of the three windows which composed the principal ornament of the front, but of some modern architectural innovations, highly injurious to the picturesque appearance of this venerable structure. It is a melancholy reflection to the traveller, who repeats, at certain intervals, his visits to the many interesting spots selected by our ancestors, either for military or religious establishments, that at each visit he will, most probably, find them progressively verging to decay. But Llanthony, even amidst its ruins, still supplies the artist with many fine subjects for his pencil, and furnishes ample matter of inquiry and investigation to the architect and antiquarian. From certain data we have of its first construction, about the year 1108, and subsequent desertion in 1136, we are enabled to ascertain the style of architecture then adopted in monastic buildings, as there can be little doubt but that the ruins we now see are those of the original abbey.*

Summary [For the following details-slightly altered and abridged— we are indebted to a recent and popular Description of Llanthony Priory,† by the Rev. George Roberts, M.A., in which the ruins are traced with archæological taste and accuracy:]—

The west end is flanked by two low square massive Towers. The one on the south was fitted up by Colonel Wood, a former proprietor, with apartments for the grousing season, and is covered in with a sloping roof. The Abbot's lodging, which joins on to the south side, is also turned into a dwelling-house for the steward of the estate, where visitors are obligingly accommodated. The stone staircase is perfect in the south tower, but broken in the north. The staircases were lighted by five chinks. Each tower on the outward face is divided into five stages by bold string-courses; the base is beveled off, and the ground story is broad and plain. The second and third stages are ornamented, arcade-fashion, on the side next to the west window, and the arches

* Edition 1806; but serious dilapidations have taken place since then, and even within three or four years. Great credit is due to the house of Beaufort for the pains taken in the conservation of the religious honses and castles that have fallen to its pos

VOL. II.

session and custody; and it is very gratifying to
know that the example is followed by the present
Proprietor of Llanthony.
† London: Pickering.

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are pointed. The central compartment in each successive stage recedes. In the lowest story, two pointed windows have been disfigured by modern innovation. In the centre of the second story, a beautiful example of the round-headed Norman window remains perfect to the depth of the wall; the dripstone over it is plain in the north tower, but in the south is terminated by two corbel-heads. The third story is ornamented with a double long lancet-shaped blank window, of great elegance in design; the pointed heads spring from triple shafts with plain Norman capitals. Between these towers, thus ornamented so as to correspond, stood the great

West Window over the principal entrance, already noticed. Joining on to the south tower, there is a round-headed deep window, with a broad trefoiled head, belonging to a plain vaulted chamber called the Prior's Lodging. This chamber abuts upon the church, and commences the conventual buildings. Entering by the west you see the interior of the whole church. The Nabe was separated from the two Aisles on each side by eight obtusely-pointed arches, supported on massive pillars square without capitals; the bases ornamented with ogee mouldings. A round moulding, deeply let in, runs from the base entirely round the arch, to the base on the opposite side.

The Arches on the north side still stand perfect. On the south four only remain, and these imperfect-two at each end of the Nave. The central arches fell in thirteen years ago (1837), on Ash-Wednesday, without any external notice, and whilst the family were at dinner. Had they fallen a few minutes sooner, some person must have been killed. The pressure of the clerestory windows, which on this side were destroyed, as upon the other, overweighted the arches beneath, and forced them in. The four others remaining are in a very tottering condition—and would have fallen, if Mr. Webb, the steward, to whom the building is much indebted for its preservation, had not built up some rude but well-intentioned buttresses; which, however much they may disfigure, are essential to the strengthening of the remains. He also ingeniously hooped with iron two of the pillars, and by the application of the screw, has managed to bring them back into their former position.

The Side Aisles are completely down; but the termination of the North Aisle, with the only specimen of the roof remaining, is to be seen in the North Tower of the west front. Here there is also a long, deep, round-headed Norman window, looking to the north. The arch at the end of the Nave, next to the Tower, springs from a corbel, consisting of three truncated pillars with capitals. The bit of the roof of the Aisle which remains is heavily groined, and formed by the intersection of round arches. The flat wall buttress, on either side of the Tower, has at the top a square moulding, fluted, from which springs an arch spanning the Aisle-the only one of the series in existence. This is the

ABBEY.]

ARCHES-BELL-TOWER-STAIRCASE-TRANSEPTS.

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most acutely pointed in the whole building, and gives an idea of the character of the rest belonging to the Aisles.

The Arches are divided from what seems to have been a triforium [Coxe, who saw it when perfect, calls it an upper tier of Norman arches], by a straight plain band. Between each arch is a corbel, formed of three clustered pillars, as before, with plain Norman capitals, and worked off to a point, where the base should have been, six in number, and from these, evidently, sprung the vaulted and groined roof.

In the interior, above, nothing remains but a double window, pointed and elegant, which seems to have formed the lower portion of the deep Norman recessed arch, through which the passage ran along to the Bell-tower. This may be clearly traced from the exterior of the building. A low round-headed plain door connected each aisle with its contiguous transept. The square

Bell-tower was supported upon four large and noble pointed arches, of which the west and the south, together with the sides above them, are standing; although there is reason to fear for the latter, from the pressure of the superincumbent building, which has shattered and bowed it out. Only sixty years ago the Bell-tower was thirty-seven feet higher than at present, viz., sixty-three feet, as taken by an instrument-whence the entire height was at first exactly a hundred feet. The ruin now reaches but a short way above the dripstone of the roof. The west arch springs from a corbel of three stunted pillars, clustered, and terminating in a flower-the corbel on the opposite terminating in a square moulding of the ogee description. The gable in the western arch is pierced by two small plain Norman windows, and has a third narrow-pointed window in the apex.

The Staircase communicating with the belfry is lighted by a round-headed window. We may conjecture there were several bells in the tower—carried off to Gloucester by Prior Roger.*

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Transepts. Nothing remains of the North Transept but one side of the window. [See the woodcut.]-The South Transept is lighted upon the south by a double Norman window, the moulding and shaft plain, the window eighteen feet by three; and above them, in the gable, is a plain Rose window, of which nothing but the circular rim remains. The effect of this composition, from its simplicity, is exceedingly imposing. A bold Norman arch, supported by a plain Norman corbel pillar, with a cushion capital, communicates on the east, from the transept, with the Lady Chapel; and one step from the Tower leads into the Choir.

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*Now, in Walter de Troucestre's Chron., we read, 'A.D. 1301, on the first day of April, being Eastereve, the Church of Llanthony, near Gloucester, was

entirely burnt to the bare walls, together with its four belfries, nor did any bell remain that was not either broken or melted."-Roberts.

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