Over the western doorway leading into the Round, is a beautiful Norman wheel-window, which was uncovered and brought to light by the workmen during the recent reparation of this interesting building. It is considered a masterpiece of masonry.
The entrance from the Round to the oblong portion of the Temple Church is formed by three lofty pointed arches, which open upon the nave and the two aisles. The mouldings of these arches display great beauty and elegance, and the central arch, which forms the grand entrance to the nave, is supported upon magnificent Purbeck marble columns.
Having passed through one of these elegant and richly-embellished archways, we enter a large, lofty, and light structure, consisting of a nave and two aisles of equal height, formed by eight clustered marble columns, which support a groined vaulted ceiling richly and elaborately painted. This chaste and graceful edifice presents to us one of the most pure and beautiful examples in existence of the early pointed style, which immediately succeeded the mixed order of architecture visible in the Round. The numerous elegantly-shaped windows which extend around this portion of the building, the exquisite proportions of the slim marble columns, the beauty and richness of the architectural decorations, and the extreme lightness and airiness of the whole structure, give us the idea of a fairy palace.
The marble columns supporting the pointed arches of the roof, four in number on each side, do not consist of independent shafts banded together, as in the Round, but form solid pillars which possess vast elegance and beauty. Attached to the walls of the church, in a line with these pillars, are a series of small clustered columns, composed of three slender shafts, the central one being of Purbeck marble, and the others of Caen stone; they are bound together by a band at their centres and their bases, which are of Purbeck marble, rest on a stone seat or plinth, which extends the whole length of the body of the church. These clustered columns, which are placed parallel to the large central pillars, are surmounted by foliated capitals, from whence spring the groined ribs which traverse the vaulted ceiling of the roof. The side walls are thus divided into five compartments on either side, which are each filled up with a triple lancet-headed window, of a graceful form, and richly ornamented. It is composed of three long narrow openings surmounted by pointed arches, the central arch rising above the lateral ones. The mouldings of the arches rest upon four slender marble columns which run up in front of the stone mullions of the windows, and impart to them great elegance and beauty. The great number of these windows, and the small intervening spaces of blank wall between them, give a vast lightness and airiness to the whole structure.