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Amesbury,
Wiltshire - St Mary and St Melor Church 12th Century onwards Click on photos to enlarge |
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 South |
 South east |
 Chancel, north inside |
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| A medieval priory church, originally Norman, see nave details below. Perpendicular south aisle to the nave (on left of first picture). ... But the noble appearance of the church, as we now see it, is essentially E.E. The crossing tower has three widely-spaced single bell-openings, ... the transepts have three stepped lancets on the end walls and single lancets otherwise ... the chancel long single lancets - interrupted by two early C14 windows of much larger size, one with cusped intersected tracery with a big pointed quatrefoil spread out at the top (south side), the other with reticulated tracery (north side). They are not in line. | ||||
 South transept, east |
 N transept, E chapel |
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Against the E sides (of both transepts), the outline of a chapel can be seen which stood against the chancel. |
The N transept has in addition a second, outer E chapel, and that has remained intact, except that the pretty late C13 twin window in the gable with its shaft, its leaf capital, its pointed-trefoiled light, and its quatrefoil above is said to be reset. |
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 East |
 Chancel north and Crossing, north east |
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The E window is by Butterfield, who restored the church in 1853 .. |
Butterfield provided, concealed from the eye of the passer-by, one of his most violent designs as a turret in the NE corner of the crossing. |
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North transept, west |
The nave, cut short at some later date, is basically Norman, as is proved by the corbel table on both N and S sides, the two blocked clerestory windows visible on the outside, and the three blocked ones on the S (visible inside). |
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View from
nave through crossing to chancel. |
The S aisle is Early Perp, see the two-bay arcade with pier of the well-known section of four shafts and four hollows. Decorated capitals, arches of two hollow chamfers. |
South
transept |
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 Nave, looking west |
 North transept |
 Font |
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Good roofs nearly everywhere: in the nave low pitch, tie-beams on arched braces, ... |
in the transepts and aisle ceiled wagon roofs ... . |
Square, Norman, of Purbeck marble, with the familiar very shallow blank arches. |
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 In Chancel |
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A small doorway with hood-mould on stiff-leaf stops and a tall, rather crude arch with openwork cusping, crocketed gable, and buttress-shafts. It must be c.1300, and was probably a substitute for an Easter sepulchre. |
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