Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 9.djvu/343

THE ABBEY CHURCH OF DORCHESTER, 267 apparently formed part of a jamb. We may therefore con- clude that at one time the choir terminated at this point with an Early English front, flanked by pilasters, that to the south (as being on the show side) carried up into an ornamental turret, and that some of its windows or arcades were enriched with tooth-moulding ; and that this front existed before the present north aisle was added. In the external wall of the north aisle there is also a considerable extent of masonry, wdiich seems to belong to a period intermediate between the original Norman erection and the early Decorated work of the greater portion of that aisle : this includes the wes- tern bay of the aisle, reckoning from the transverse arch ntf. A little westward of its door- way is a most conspicuous break in the wall, wath a change of string (at d) ; some- what clumsily effected, as they are not on the same level. Internally also we can dis- tinctly observe the seam, and trace the original wall in its basement, the thickness having been, as Mr. Addington re- marks, diminished during the Decorated reconstruction. That is, this part of the wall was rebuilt from the string, while to the east of this point it is an original Decorated erection. From this we may infer that the choir, whose east end we have just discovered, had, or was designed to have, a noi'tli aisle ; but as it is clear from the remains of the east end that it could not have extended so far eastward as the ends of the present aisles, we may most probably conclude that it reached as far as the point Avhere the masonry breaks in the north w^all, and no further. If we suppose an arch, or two small arches, dividing the choir and its nortli aisle, where the western- most of the three Decorated arclies now stands, while the Junction of Norman and Decorated Work. North Aisle of Choir.