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present wall and seems to have been re-built, presumably
in the process of moving it and making any necessary repairs. It may have
been in the previous north wall of Patrixbourne church. No other
twelfth-century features are incorporated in any of the walls of the north
aisle.
The east end of the chancel also seems largely unchanged
since the twelfth century. In the gable there is a decorated wheel window
and below it three round-headed lancet windows, with the central window
much larger than those on either side. The lancets were reported to have
been blocked but reopened in the nineteenth-century restoration to house
the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Swiss glass that had already been
presented to the church by the first Marchioness of Conyngham as part of
the 1849 restoration (as recorded by Scott-Robertson). However, some doubt
is thrown on the idea that all three had been closed because a central
lancet is shown below the wheel window in Charles Clarke’s watercolour
dating from about 1828 (now in the Victoria and Albert Museum). From both
inside and outside the lancets now seem out of scale with the wheel window
and, although there is no specific mention in surviving documents of any
changes, it is possible that the side lancets were reopened and the
central one enlarged in order to accommodate the enamelled glass
collection. To complete the tour of the exterior of the church mention
must be made of the square-headed, later window at the east end of the
Bifrons chapel. |
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All internal walls of Patrixbourne church are now plastered and painted
white, but one can speculate that there was painting on the west and north
walls as well as in the chancel and around the chancel arch. In the only
surviving commentary before the nineteenth-century re-building, Hasted
wrote that the church was small and that ‘the pillars in it are very
large and clumsy, and the arches circular’. Newman is mistaken when he
says that the north and south arcades are Scott’s work of 1857. First,
the north aisle was, according to both Newman and Scott Robertson, added
in the mid-1820s and, second, the arch to the west of the tower (now
almost hidden by the insertion of an organ in the bay) remains
round-headed. It seems likely that the original round-headed arch (or,
more likely, arches) between the Bifrons chapel and the nave was replaced
when the chapel was added and that the northern arcade was designed to
match the Bifrons arches.23 The dimensions of the chancel
are unchanged since the twelfth century, although the floor level seems to
have been raised.24
The chancel arch is unchanged and is round-headed, although
its shape is now more of a horseshoe than a semi-circle.25 It
has cylindrical shafts, and plain capitals and footings. The overall
effect is of unexciting but good workmanship. As already mentioned, the
only
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