Pan-Islam

The window is said to have been altered for the worse in the seventeenth century, and in its last phase the whole façade presented what Mr. Dollman describes as 'a heterogeneous mass of masonry and brickwork', not worth preserving when the modern restoration was taken in hand. The flying buttresses have been reproduced in the new nave, and the chief doorway placed in the south-west corner, which the architect was led to believe was its original position. It is generally admitted that by the sixteenth century the monastic institutions had so far departed from the ideal of their founders, and outlived their usefulness, as to call for some drastic measures for their improvement.