the
string-course, with a plain corbel at the side of each to carry the
water-spout.

=The Central Tower. North and West Sides.=--The central tower of Ripon is
probably unique among towers in being divided vertically between two
different styles of architecture. Its north and west sides are
Archbishop Roger's work,[38] but the other sides are Perpendicular,
having been rebuilt after the collapse of the south-east angle. Seen
from the north-west, however, it presents much the same appearance now
as in the twelfth century, and either side displays a pair of
round-headed windows, with the weathering of the original roof rising
high between them and (on the west face) cutting off their corners. The
windows have a shaft in the jamb, and the abacus of the capitals is
continued round the tower as a string, but interrupted by the
buttresses and weatherings, as is also another string below the sills.
In the windows of the north side there is a space or tympanum over the
inner arch. Each corner of the tower was strengthened by a pair of flat
buttresses, with one shaft at the corner itself and another at the inner
side of either buttress, and with the shafts banded half way up and
again near the top. These buttresses are received in an overhanging
corbel-table, above which runs a hollow moulding, filled with dog-tooth
ornament of a large size and continued round the projections that serve
for gargoyles. The use of this Early English ornament in a scheme which
might otherwise be pure Norman affords a good instance of the
Transitional character of the work. The battlements are later.

=The North Transept=, with the three adjacent bays of the choir, gives
some idea of the external appearance of Archbishop Roger's church.[39]
The date of the beginning of the work ascribed to him is placed within
his lifetime (1154-1181) by his own words quoted in Chapter I. The
transept is divided by the string-courses into four stages, and has a
very massive plinth which is lower than that of the nave, thus
expressing the slope of the ground. The west wall is shorter than the
east and has two bays only, but south of the second bay, and separated
from it by a flat pilaster, is a narrow space, along the top of which
are the remains of a cornice: the two bays proper are separated by a
recessed buttress of some projection. One round-headed window, divided
by a mullion, appears in the second stage; and in the fourth stage are
two plain, round-headed wi