button to main menu   Ford's Description of the Lakes, 1839/1843

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Page 110:-
elegant niches, then seven long tall lancets fill the whole length of the front, having the alternate ones only pierced for lights; in the gable is a niche containing a statute of the Virgin and Child, and on each side, shields charged with the armorial cognizances of the Abbey and the Dacres, and the top is crowned by the fragments of a beauteous cross. The nave is fitted up as the parish church, and is lighted by a row of eight clerestory windows; these have the toothed ornament, the only kind used, which, with the cornice that runs round the whole building, give a rich appearance to the general plan of the exterior. The low Norman tower rising about a square in height above the roof, is supported by massive angular piers. The transepts and choir are unroofed, and suffered to go to decay. The opposite sides of the choir are different in their architecture, and the transepts respectively partake of it. Tall circular piers, with only the clerestory windows above, is the disposition of the south side; whilst the north has low massive circular piers, and a triforium as well as clerestory. The east end is lighted by two tiers of lancet windows, three in each; this and the south side are now profusely covered with ivy and mountain ashes; wall-flowers wave over the other parts, and diffuse their fragrance in the air. There are several monuments in this part of the church belonging to the Dacres, to whom the Abbey lands fell at the dissolution, and to the Howards, their successors. Two of the monuments belonging to the Dacres are under ogee
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button -- "Lanercost Abbey" -- Lanercost Priory
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