THE ABBEY CHURCH OP DORCHESTER. 269 resembles Llandafl', as also in tlic circumstance that the Decorated alterations were not effected all at once ; in each three distinct stages may be traced : but there is this im- portant dillbrcnce, that at Llandair all the work of this age was executed from one general design, with merely the changes of detail consequent upon the gradual manner in which it was carried out, whereas at Dorchester there is no such general design ; there is certainly a clear attempt to bring each of the two later portions into harmony with that which immediately preceded it ; but the diUcrences between them are not merely in detail ; each retains a remarkable independence, and, as it were, isolation from the rest. The first portion of the Decorated work includes the greater part of the north aisle (all, in fact, except North choir the portion of earlier masonry in its western '^*'- bay), together with the three grand arches on the north side of the choir. The style here is rather to be con- sidered as Transitional, than as fully developed Decorated ; the windows indeed contain complete Geometrical tracery, and, except in the eastern one, not of the very earliest kind ; but much of the detail is hardly removed froni Early English ; the shafts against the wall have square plinths ; the tooth-moulding occurs in their capitals and in those of some of the jamb-shafts of the windows ; the east window, the diagonal buttress at the north-east angle, and the transverse arch already mentioned, might all, taken by themselves, pass for Early English. Yet there is no occasion to suppose them to be parts of any other design ; they were probably merely the first instalments of a design which took a considerable time to accomplish, and of which the great arcade and the tracery of the windows are the latest. In other respects too, the details of this whole aisle are well worthy of attention, both from their singularity and beauty. For instance, there is an early instance of a doorway with a square-headed label ; ^ the same also presenting a singular and extremely unpleasant example of the discontinuous impost. This is the strongest case of a tendency towards that disagreeable form which is continually recurring throughout the church at most of the
- One still earlier, and with a still more found among the conventual buildings of
complete anticipation of Perpendicular, is Gloucester Cathedral. VOL. IX. X N
