f this is now only three feet above the
ground level, but originally it must have been far higher. Four steps
give access to it. Before it is a hollow space with stumps of piers,
demonstrating the ancient presence of an arcade in front of the
platform. The feretory is without internal decoration, but the exterior
of the east wall is adorned with nine rich Decorated tabernacles, with
the yet legible names of saints and king who once occupied the eighteen
pedestals within them. This inscription is to be found here:--

_Corpora sanctorum sunt hic in pace sepulta,
Ex meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa_.

The floor beneath the platform is supported by a small vault, "the
entrance to which (to quote Willis) is by a low arch in the eastern face
of the wall under the range of tabernacles." This vault is that which
was designated as the _Sanctum Sanctorum_ or #Holy Hole#. The feretory
is used as a receptacle for the carved work found at various dates about
the cathedral, including portions of statuary once belonging to the
great screen. Here lies a really marvellous lid of a reliquary chest,
presented in 1309 by Sir William de Lilburn, with events in the life of
our Lord and various saints vividly portrayed in colours, and decorated
with the donor's armorial bearings. The "Holy Hole" has been used as a
receptacle for fragments of various kinds since the end of the fifteenth
century, before which it was visible from the choir, for no reredos
intercepted the view. Milner states that in 1789 the whole passage and
vault was so choked with rubbish that the attempt to enter it had to be
abandoned. A more recent observer records that there appears to be no
space for a crypt or receptacle for relics within the "Holy Hole," the
chest of bones, etc., being placed on the platform over the arcade. The
fragments now in the feretory are often very fine, but are most of them
sadly mutilated.

[Illustration: BACK OF FERETORY, WITH BISHOP GARDINER'S CHANTRY
_S.B. Bolas & Co., Photo._]

The north and south sides of the feretory are flanked by the chantries
of Bishops Gardiner and Fox, into which it opens. #Gardiner's Chantry#,
in the Renaissance style, was much damaged by the Reformers, the head
being knocked off the figure lying in a long niche on the outside of the
chantry, and other indignities committed. Of the tomb nothing now
remains, but there is an altar with figures at the back, after Italian
models, representing, accordi