I shall attempt no description of the west front of this monastery, few continental buildings being better known in England. The whole remains as it was in the time of Ducarel, except that the arches of entrance are blocked up, and modern windows have been inserted in the door-ways.--The north side of the church is quite concealed by the cloisters and conventual buildings. The southern aisle has been plastered and patched, and converted into a range of work-shops, so that its original elevation is wholly obliterated. But the nave, which rises above, is untouched by innovation. The clerestory range is filled by a row of semi-circular headed windows, separated by intervening flat buttresses, which reach to the cornice. Each buttress is edged with two slender cylindrical pilasters; and each window flanked by two smaller arches, whose surfaces are covered with chequer-work. The arch of every window has a key-stone, formed by a grotesque head.--Above the whole is a corbel-table that displays monsters of all kinds, in the form of beasts, and men scarcely less monstrous.--The semi-circular east end is divided in its elevation into three compartments. The lower contains a row of small blank arches: in each of the other two is a window, of a size unusually large for a Norman building, but still without mullions or tracery; its sides ornamented with columns, and its top encircled with a broad band of various mouldings. The windows are separated by cylindrical pillars, instead of buttresses.--In the upper part of the low central tower are some pointed arches, the only deviations of style that are to be found in the building. To the extremity of the southern transept has been attached a Grecian portico, which masks the ancient portal. Above is a row of round arches, some of which are pierced into windows.