that of
both together (including the crossing) is 134 feet, or about the same
as the length of the nave. In the transepts and choir the relative
proportion of the three storeys or stages to one another, which in the
nave was so remarkable, becomes more ordinary, and the change in the
level of the triforium passage--due to the heightening of the lowest
stage to meet the exigencies of aisles--necessitates long staircases
(now blocked) behind the western piers of the tower: and the same is the
case (though in a less degree) with the clearstorey, which in this part
of the church is loftier, instead of being shorter, than the triforium.
In either transept a bench-table runs along the west wall, and the large
lower windows are plainly splayed, but have their sills stepped. The
glass in them is bad, except some seventeenth century pieces in the
window over the north door. The roof, which is of oak, and
Perpendicular, had been concealed in the time of Blore by sham Norman
vaulting constructed of _papier mache_. Sir Gilbert Scott removed this
abomination and exposed the old ceiling, which he repaired and partially
renewed. It is almost flat, is raised on wooden figure-corbels, which
prevent it from intersecting with the tower arches, and is adorned with
judicious colour.

=The North Transept=, which is 34 feet wide, or 52 feet if the 'aisle' be
included, is almost as its builders left it, and is among the most
famous examples of the architecture of the age of Henry II. and Thomas a
Becket, when the early English style was being developed from the
Norman. As the details are the same here as in all Archbishop Roger's
work, they need no further description. To take the west and north walls
first, the Perpendicular arch opening into the aisle of the nave cuts
into two blocked round arches, of which that on the right was a window,
while that on the left is backed by the old nave wall; and in this first
bay (which is narrower than the others in both this and the opposite
wall) the triforium arches are blocked up, as well as the first lancet
in the clearstorey, where there is moreover no window. Each bay shows in
the triforium two pointed arches with a pierced quatrefoil between them,
and in the clearstorey a stilted round arch, pierced and glazed, between
two smaller arches of lancet form, which on the north wall are very
curiously barred across at the impost level, the _abaci_ of two shafts
being formed by one slab.

[Illustratio