present west front appeared every day, and speaking of
the tower and of the west front as well-known limits to a certain work.
Surely they not only meant, but _must have meant_, the front that _then_
was, in other words, the west front as it is _now_."

The conclusion of the controversy may perhaps not yet have been reached.
But all the difficulties appear to be explained by understanding that
Benedict's work extended to the west end of the present nave, and that
he carried the whole building further west than was originally intended,
and managed to do this without destroying the lower part of the towers
which had actually been raised.

When, therefore, the Norman nave, as originally designed, was
approaching completion, the designers determined upon an extension of
the nave, and a much grander western finish to the church than had
before been contemplated. This idea included a dignified western
transept, the dimensions of which, from north to south, should exceed
the entire width of the nave and aisles. This would of necessity involve
the lengthening of the nave, because the monastic buildings came close
to the south aisle of the nave, at the point where the original
termination of the church was to have been, as may be seen by the old
western wall of the cloister, which is still standing.

The two next abbots were Andrew (1193-1200), and Acharius (1200-1210).
To one or both of these may be assigned the western transept. By their
time the Norman style was giving place to the lighter and more elegant
architecture of the Early English period, the round arch was beginning
to be superseded by the pointed arch, and the massive ornamentation
which marks the earlier style was displaced by the conventional foliage
that soon came to be very generally employed. Most wisely, however, the
Peterborough builders made their work at the west end of the nave
intentionally uniform with what was already built. Very numerous
indications of this can be seen by careful observers. The bases of the
western pillars, the change in the depth of the mouldings,
characteristic changes in the capitals in the triforium range, and
especially the grand arches below the transept towers, which are
pointed, but enriched with ornamentation of pronounced Norman character,
all point to the later date of this western transept.

At the west wall of the church all trace of Norman work disappears. The
arcade near the ground, the large round arch above the do