Except the two round buttresses at the west end and one on the north side which has Manoelino pinnacles, all are the same, breaking into a cluster of Gothic pinnacles rather more than half-way up and ending in one large square crocketed pinnacle very like those at Batalha. The roof being flat and paved there is no gable at the west end; there is a band of carving for cornice, then a moulding, and above it a parapet of flattened quatrefoils, in each of which is an armillary sphere, and at the top a cresting, alternately of cusped openings and crosses of the Order of Christ, most of which, however, have been broken away. Of the windows all are wide and pointed, without tracery and deeply splayed. The one in the central bay next the porch has niches and canopies at the side for statues and jambs not unlike those designed some years after at Belem. There is also a certain resemblance between the door here and the great south entrance to Belem, though this one is of far greater beauty, being more free from over-elaboration and greatly helped by the shadow of the high arch. So far the design has shown nothing very abnormal; but for one or two renaissance details it is all of good late Gothic, with scarcely any Manoelino features. It is also more pleasing than any other contemporary building in Portugal, and the detail, though very rich, is more restrained. This may be due to the nationality of João de Castilho, for some of the work is almost Spanish, for example the buttresses, the pinnacles, and the door with its trefoiled drip-mould. If, however, the two eastern bays are good late Gothic, what can be said of the western? Here the fancy of the designer seems to have run quite wild, and here it is that what have been considered to be Indian features are found. It is hard to believe that João de Castilho, who nowhere, except perhaps in the sacristy door at Alcobaça, shows any love of what is abnormal and outlandish, should have designed these extraordinary details, and so perhaps the local tradition may be so far true, according to which the architect was not João but one Ayres do Quintal. Nothing else seems to be known of Ayres--though a head carved under the west window of the chapter-house is said to be his--but in a country so long illiterate as Portugal, where unwritten stories have been handed down from quite distant times, it is possible that oral tradition may be as true as written records.