rfect than either St. Paul or St. Gervais, and, consequently, more
valuable to the architect. This building, without spire or tower, and
divided into three parts of unequal length and height, the nave, the
choir, and the circular apsis, externally resembles one of the meanest
of our parish-churches, such as a stranger, judging only from the
exterior, would be almost equally likely to consider as a place of
worship, or as a barn. It is, however, if I am not mistaken, one of the
purest and most perfect specimens of the Norman aera. I know of no
building in England, which resembles it so nearly as the chancel of
Hales Church, in Norfolk; but the latter has been exposed to material
alterations, while the chapel of which I am speaking is externally quite
regular in its design, being divided throughout its whole length into
small compartments, by a row of shallow buttresses rising from the
ground to the eaves of the roof, without any partition into splays.
Those on the south side are still in their primaeval state; but a
buttress of a subsequent, though not recent, date, has been built up
against almost every one of the original buttresses on the north side,
by way of support to the edifice. Each division contains a single narrow
circular-headed window: beneath these is a plain moulding, continued
uninterruptedly over the buttresses as well as the wall, thus proving
both to be coeval; another plain moulding runs nearly on a level with
the tops of the windows, and takes the same circular form; but it is
confined to the spaces between the buttresses. There are no others. The
entrance was by circular-headed doors at the west end and south side,
both of them very plain; but particularly the latter. The few ornaments
of the western are as perfect and as sharp as if the whole were the work
of yesterday. This part of the church has, however, been exposed to
considerable injury, owing to its having joined the conventual
buildings, which were destroyed at the revolution. The inside is, like
the exterior, almost perfect, but it is very much more rich, uniting to
the common ornaments of Norman architecture, capitals, in some
instances, of classical beauty. The ceiling is covered with paintings of
scriptural subjects, which still remain, notwithstanding that the
building is now desecrated, and used as a woodhouse by the neighboring
farmer.

The date of the erection of the chapel is well ascertained[69]. The
hospital was founded in 1183,