The church of St. Nicholas, now used as a stable, was built by William
the Conqueror, in the year 1060, or thereabouts. Desecrated as it is, it
remains entire; and its interior is remarkable for the uniformity of the
plan, the symmetry of the proportions. All the capitals of the pillars
attached to the walls are alike; and those of the arches, which very
nearly resemble the others, are also all of one pattern. In the
side-aisles there is no groining, but only cross vaulting. The vaulting
of the nave is pointed, and of late introduction. Round the choir and
transepts runs a row of small arches, as in the triforium.--The west end
was formerly flanked by two towers, the southern of which only remains.
This is square, and well proportioned: each side contains two lancet
windows. The lower part is quite plain, excepting two Norman buttresses.
The whole of the width of the central compartment, which is more than
quadruple that of either of the others, is occupied below by three
circular portals, now blocked up.--Above them are five windows, disposed
in three tiers. In the lowest are two not wider than loop-holes: over
these two others, larger; another small one is at the top. All these
windows are of the simplest construction, without side pillars or
mouldings.--The choir of the church ends in a semi-circular apsis,
divided into compartments by a row of pillars, rising as high as the
cornice: in the intercolumniation are windows, and under the windows
small arches, each of which has its head hewn out of a single
stone.--The roof of the choir is of stone, and the pitch of it is very
high.

Here, then, we have the exact counterpart of the Irish stone-roofed
chapels, the most celebrated of which, that of Cormac, in Cashel
Cathedral, appears, from all the drawings and descriptions I have seen
of it, to be altogether a Norman building. Ledwich asserts that "this