but are furnished with louvre-boards. The tower
is crowned with a pierced battlemented parapet having pinnacles at
the corners and at the middles of each side; within this rises a low
pyramidal roof. The stair turret runs up at the north-east angle of the
tower; this is octagonal, and is crowned with a parapet and crocketed
pinnacles; the upper part of this turret and the pinnacles were renewed
in 1871. The tower is strengthened by two buttresses at right angles
to each other at each of the two western angles. On either side of
the tower, as already explained, may be seen the west end of the nave
aisles; these have windows with Perpendicular tracery, and on the north
wall of the north aisle is a plain, round-headed doorway cut through the
wall in modern time, with a Perpendicular window over it.

[Illustration: NORTH PORCH.]

Next comes the #North Porch#, with a chamber above it--here, as in
many other churches, the chief entrance into the building. Its great
dimensions, both in length and height, however, are remarkable; it
projects 40 feet beyond the aisle wall, and its own side walls rise
nearly to the height of the clerestory of the church. Its south end
does not extend beyond the wall of the aisle, so that there is a space
between the upper part of the porch and the clerestory. The upper part
above the porch proper contains, as mentioned above, a lofty chamber,
probably originally the muniment-room. This is lighted by two pairs
of narrow single-light windows on either side, and by a similar pair
in the north face beneath the obtuse-angled gable. This room is, no
doubt, a later addition. The entrance into the porch is a beautiful,
deeply-recessed archway of thirteenth-century date, with numerous shafts
of Purbeck marble on either side. Within the porch the side walls are
divided into two compartments, each of which is composed of two pointed
arches beneath another larger pointed arch, with a cinquefoil in the
head. On the west side, near the outer archway, is a cinquefoiled
recess, with shafts of Purbeck marble and foliated cusps. This is
said originally to have contained a desk, at which the prior met the
parishioners and signed deeds. A stone seat runs along each side of
the porch walls. The double doorway which leads into the church is very
beautiful and rich Early English work. From six Purbeck marble shafts on
either side spring the orders of the enclosing archway; the heads of the
double doorways themselves