orately painted with frescoes, and the room formerly
communicated with the original Norman triforium of the choir. This
room has at various times had absurd names given to it, perhaps the
most absurd being that of the Nun's Prison. As Mr. Blunt in
"Tewkesbury and its Associations" says, there are many people who
cannot hear about monks without immediately thinking of nuns. It would
seem that the room communicated with the dorter or dormitory, and was
designed for invalid monks, who from it might hear mass sung in the
church without going downstairs. In the south-east corner of the
transept a staircase gives access to this chamber, and communicates
with the triforium of the transept, the clerestory of the choir, the
vaulting of the ambulatory as well as that of the tower.

Before 1875 a gallery filled up the south transept and two bays of the
south aisle, and communicated by means of the organ screen with the
similar gallery in the north transept.

In the west wall is a recess, formerly a doorway of Early English
work. On the south wall is a brass tablet from the choir pavement, to
the memory of Prince Edward.

At the corner of the south transept and the south aisle is a curious
recess in the masonry hidden by a curtain.

At the extreme east end of the south aisle, near the niche or recess
just mentioned, is a rudely carved head which no doubt served as a
cresset.

THE CHOIR.

This part of the building is usually entered from the south ambulatory
by the entrance opposite to the door of the clergy vestry. The
screen-work at this entrance to the choir was in a ruinous state in
the early part of this century, and has been most carefully repaired,
and in part renewed.

It is a choir of great beauty, and though at first sight small and
low, its proportions are admirable in every way, the length being
almost exactly twice the breadth.

From the centre of the eastern tower-piers to the back of the altar
the choir measures 63 feet, but the total length from the present
oak-screen to the altar is 103 feet. The breadth in its widest part is
33 feet.[20]

The upper part of the choir was reconstructed in the early part of the
fourteenth century in its present polygonal form, the Norman pillars
being carried up three feet, and fitted on the choir side with
Decorated capitals.

The curious effect of the carrying up of the columns will be seen from
the fact that the arches which spring from the Decorated capitals do
no