button to main menu   West's Guide to the Lakes, 1778/1821

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Page 40:-
the company in the side passage would be concealed by the pillars, and the vaulted roof, that groined from those pillars, would have a truly Gothic disproportionate appearance of sixty feet by thirteen. The two side alleys were lighted, each by a pair of similar lights, besides another pair at the upper end, at present entire, and which illustrate what is here said. Thus, whilst the upper end of the room had a profusion of light, the lower end would be in the shade. The noble roof of this singular edifice did but lately fall in, and the entrance or porch is still standing, a fine circular arch, beautified with a deep cornice, and a portico on each side. The only entire roof now remaining, is of a building without the inclosure-wall. It was the school-house of the abbot's tenants, and is a single ribbed arch that groins from the wall.
There is a general disproportion remarkable in Gothic churches, which must have originated in some effect intended by all the architects; perhaps to strike the mind with reverential awe, at the sight of magnificence arising from the vastness of two dimensions, and a third seemingly disregarded; or, perhaps such a determinate height and length was found more favourable than any other to the church song, by giving a deeper swell to
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