The Apparitions and Miracles at Knock; also, the Official Depositions of the Eye-witnesses

II
The Church of Knock.
The building has no pretension to architectural elegance
of any kind nor to the internal beauty such as one would wish
to witness in God's house. The plan of the building, if plan
it can be called, is in the shape of the letter T, the long limb
being about sixty feet, and the cross limbs in breadth about
fifty feet. The chancel and altar are grouped at the head
where the arms project to the right and left. Standing at the
altar and looking down the nave, one beholds at the end a
loft or entrance that leads to a tower with belfry, both of
which are of modern construction and date. The gold-
coloured pinnacle of this tower is the first part of the building
that comes in view as one, from a southerly direction, ap
proaches the village in which the church stands. To the rear
of the chancel and attached to the gable of the altar, a house,
less elevated than the walls of the church proper, has been
erected ; this additional building, which is entered by a door
from the chancel, is known as the sacristy—a house in which
the sacred ornaments of the church, and the sacred vessels
and every requisite for the altar are kept in safety, by the
priests or by their attendants. The gable of this sacristy, in
a line parallel to the gable of the church, is the second stone
erection between the chancel and the outside world, towards,
or at the south-eastern gable. It is well, too, to point out
the direction to which this plain wall faces : its front looks
straight into the approaching meridian sun at n o'clock,
a.m. ; its right wing points to the south-west ; its left wing
or branch, to the east by north.
Objections answered.
This is the gable hard by which the first miraculous appari
tion was beheld on the evening and night of the 2 1 st of August