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In the east windows of both the choir aisles is some good Early English glass.

THE PRESBYTERY

We will now turn westwards, past the south porch, and come to the south-east transept; here the line of the old Roman wall and ditch runs right through the cathedral, the apsidal chapels of the eastern transepts and the whole of the presbytery, as well as the chapter-house, lying all outside it. Two apsidal chapels in this transept are dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul. It was in St. Peter’s that sub-dean Bramfield was murdered by a sub-deacon, September 25, 1205, who paid the penalty immediately at the hands of the sub-dean’s servants. The exquisite white marble tomb and recumbent figure of John Kaye, bishop 1827 to 1853, by Westmacott, is in this chapel. Opposite to these apsidal chapels are the canons’ and choristers’ vestries; under the former is a crypt; the latter has the monks’ lavatory, and a fireplace for the baking of the sacramental wafers by the sacristan. Passing along the south choir-aisle we reach the shrine of little St. Hugh, and here the work all around us, in choir, aisles, and transepts, is that of the great St. Hugh. The whole of the centre of the cathedral, with its double transept and the choir between them, being his; and we must notice in two of the transept chapels his peculiar work in the double capitals above slender pillars of alternate stone and marble, and projecting figures of saints and angels low down in each spandrel. We now enter the choir, and pause to admire the magnificent work and all its beauty. On either side are the sixty-two beautiful and richly carved canopied stalls. They are only excelled, perhaps, by those at Winchester. The carving of the Miserere seats is much like that at Boston, where humorous scenes are introduced. The fox in a monk’s cowl, the goose, and the monkey being the chief animals represented. Here, on a poppy-head in the precentor’s seat, a baboon is seen stealing the butter churned by two monkeys; he is caught and hanged, and on the Miserere he is being carried forth for burial. A finely carved oak pulpit, designed by Gilbert Scott, is at the north-east end of the stalls. The brass eagle is a seventeenth century copy of an earlier one. We notice overhead the stone vaulting, springing from Purbeck shafts; notice, too, the beauty of the mouldings and carved capitals, and the groups of arches forming the triforium with clerestory window above, which, however, only show between the ribs of the vaulting; and, then, the length of it! For now, by taking in two from the Angel Choir, the chancel has seven bays. It is a very striking view as you look eastwards, but it has the defect of a rather plain, low vaulting, and west of it the nave, which is a generation later, is more splendidly arranged, while east of it the Angel Choir, which is nearly half a century later than the nave, admittedly surpasses all the rest in delicacy and beauty. The choir vaulting being low, caused both nave and presbytery to be lower than they would otherwise have been, so that it has been said that when the tower fell it was a pity the chancel did not fall with it, all would then have been built with loftier roofs and with more perfect symmetry.