coping added to the rigging.
And thus proceeding from one repair to another the whole expence hath
amounted to upwards of L 1300."[1]

[1] Nicholson and Burn, page 249.

Eastward of the stalls the choir was formerly separated from the aisles
by screens of elaborate tracery work. When the cathedral was "repaired
and beautified" as just described, they were removed to outbuildings,
and by far the greater part lost or destroyed.

The cathedral was restored 1853-7, in good taste, at a cost of about
L 15,000. Mr. Ewan Christian, the architect of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners, undertook the work, and happily succeeded in
counteracting the "repairing and beautifying" of 1764.

Carlisle is not a large or notable cathedral, but its delightful Early
English choir with its magnificent east window will ever redeem it from
being insignificant or uninteresting.

CHAPTER II

THE EXTERIOR

On examining the north side of the cathedral, it is apparent that more
than one plan has been followed in the construction of the building as
it stands.

There are the remains of a Norman nave whose roof is lower than the
choir roof. The choir is Early English with clerestory windows, and the
easternmost bay (the retro-choir) Late Decorated; while the tower is
Perpendicular. In the north window of the north transept we have a
specimen of work of the nineteenth century. Thus the cathedral supplies
examples of architecture from the Norman period down to the present
time.

The moderate height of the #Nave# (65 ft.), and the treatment of its
details, are quite characteristic of the best work of the period when it
was erected.

The bays of the aisle are separated by flat buttresses about five and a
half feet wide projecting nearly one foot beyond the wall, and the
parapet wall in which they terminate is supported above the windows by a
corbel table of shields and trefoil heads.[2]

[2] These date from about 1400.

Upon the string-course which runs along the wall unbroken by the
buttresses there is in each bay a window with a circular head, flanked
by single columns. A ring-like ornament is used as a decoration for one
of the mouldings of the arch.

These windows, except the one above the doorway, are restorations. The
doorway itself, which leads into the nave, is modern, imitated from the
Norman window.

The Clerestory in each compartment has a window which differs from the
aisle windows in having the billet as decorati