Table of
Contents

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 faÇade 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.

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.

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 Ælfric (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.

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.

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.