The lowest part of the south-west tower presents a treatment different
from that on the west side. There is here a doorway, and an
additional window. Both are round-arched. The doorway is one of the
most notable pieces of beautiful design on all the exterior of the
building. It is treated solely with variations of the well-known
chevron ornament. The cut work upon it is in no case at all deep, but
the total effect is truly delightful. There is none of the dead,
formal regularity invariable in modern attempts to imitate this type
of work. The voussoirs of the arch are not all of equal size in each
order, and on one member the chevrons are reversed on opposite sides
of the centre stone except for one accidental intermission. The
abacus, nearly six inches deep, has a flat upper part on which a
continuous diaper of Greek crosses has been cut. The lower part is a
plain, hollowed chamfer moulding. Though the small columns in the
jambs are new, and also parts of the inner reveal of the jamb, yet the
old carved capitals are still in position and also the bases. These
capitals bear distinct traces of Byzantine feeling in the design of
them. Above the doorway is a billet-moulded string-course, which stops
against the circular shafts by the buttresses, and forms the sill of
the window. The design of this opening is like that of the one over it
in the next stage, which is similar to that in the same position on
the west face of the tower. But the abaci of its capitals run from the
jambs across to the buttresses, as is the case with those of the
doorway. The billet-moulded sill evidently passed round the tower
completely, before the addition of the angle buttresses, since it
appears again on the north buttress of the west front of the same
tower; and the obvious inference is that there was once a window also
on the west in this same stage at the same level. The window
immediately below the upper division of the tower is of the same date
and character exactly as the one on the west in the like place; and it