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surviving twelfth-century arcade arch is that at the west
end of the south aisle. The arches under the tower present something of a
problem as they are not all the same. To the west, there is a low
half-arch which seems to date from the time when the roof was lower. The
other two arches are tall and pointed and must be later than the twelfth
century. Presumably there was a matching half-arch to the east which was
replaced when the Bifrons chapel was built and the roof raised (see Livett’s
plan). Furthermore, it seems that both this arch and the northern arch
have been repaired or rebuilt more recently, probably during one of the
nineteenth-century restorations.
The twelfth-century south portal and wheel window are both
decorated and merit more detailed examination. The Patrixbourne south door
is often considered together with two other portals in Kent — the south
door at Barfreston and the west door at Rochester Cathedral. The twelfth-
century sculpture in Kent has been characterised as a ‘school’ or
series, for example by Boase, Stone and Zarnecki. Kahn believes that
several groups of craftsmen worked at Rochester Cathedral, Canterbury
Cathedral and, possibly, Faversham in the third quarter of the twelfth
century and that ‘the elaborate decorative styles of the parish churches
at Patrixbourne and Barfreston are later examples of the same trend’.
She suggests that one team came from Normandy, and that the ‘new
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style’
came from Touraine and northern France. Musset points out that the general
form of the doors is similar to some in the Patricks’ homeland, although
observing that the decoration owes nothing to Normandy but instead is
reminiscent of churches in the Loire and the Gironde.
There is a decorative triangular gable over the portal with
saw-tooth edging and a male head at each stop. The head on the left has a
beard of the sort found on figures carved in the mid-twelfth century in
western France, for example at Souillac. Twelfth-century gables are
unusual in southern England but more common in lower Normandy and Ireland.
The gable over the west door at St Margaret’s at Cliffe is the only
other example in Kent, but there are similar gables over both the north
and south round-headed portals at Cintheaux and over some round-headed
west doors including the churches at Chambois and Meuvaines, also in Lower
Normandy. There is then the question of whether or not such gables ever
served a useful purpose — for example, to support a small wooden porch
or to divert rainwater away from a decorated portal — or whether they
were purely decorative. Both the gables in east Kent and those in Normandy
are decorated and that may imply that they had no practical purpose.
Pointed gables also occur in churches in Ireland dating from the second
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