GOTHIC BUILDIXGS OF OXFORD. 389 being equally distributed over the space, produces an awkward effect, though the window has evidently, but not skilfully, been copied from those of New College. The side windows are of three lights with transoms, and are good in all their details ; and there arc in the interior two lofty arches, which divide the ante-chapel from the transept, and which are of the same character, and are also an imitation of those iu New College. The rest of the ante-chapel C(nTesi)onds with the hall, so that it produces one uniform front towards the quadrangle. The character of this part is totally different to that of the chapel ; and the contrast of the two (shown in the woodcut), is very striking. The tracery of the one is good perpendi- cular, but that of the other is of a kind unknown to Gothic. It is composed of scroll-work in elliptic forms, and with a kind of flat bosses at the intersections. The mouldings, too, are totally different, one not differing much from the usual
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Section of Window. Section of Window. Chapel, Wadham College. Ante-Chapel, Wadham College. section of a perpendicular window, and the other nondescript, as will be seen from the sections. These striking differences have naturally induced a belief that the chapel was either a prior erection, or that the old materials of the Augustine convent, on the site of which the college was built, had been used up again ; but by the investi- gations of the Rev. J. Griffith, whose valuable paper on the subject gives the accounts referred to, it is clearly shown that the building of the two parts was carried on simul- taneously. The foundress seems to have had a proper idea that a building used for Divine service should have a different character from those wdiich were intended for domestic uses, and therefore, as the regular masons at that period could not VOL. VIII. 3 o
