The compartment of
Wykeham's nave," he says, "is divided into two parts vertically instead
of three; for although it has a triforium gallery, yet this is so
completely subordinated to the clerestory window that it cannot be held
as a separate division of the composition, as in the Norman work where
the triforium compartment is of all importance and similar in decoration
to the other two, although not exactly like them. In Wykeham's work, on
the contrary, we find above the lofty pier-arch what at first sight
appears to be a clerestory window divided at mid-height by a transom,
and recessed under a deeply-pointed archway. But it is above the transom
only that the real window is formed by glazing the spaces between the
monials. Below the transom these spaces are filled with panels, and two
narrow openings cut through the latter give access from the roof to a
kind of balcony which projects over the pier-arches. In each compartment
this balcony exists, but there is no free passage from one to the other.
This mode of uniting the triforium and clerestory by the employment of a
transom dividing the stone panels of the former from the glazed lights
of the latter is common enough at the period of Wykeham's work and
before it, but the balcony is unusual."

It is needless to add any further explanation, since the diagram fully
explains both the present state of the nave and the manner in which the
transformation from the original Norman design was brought about; but it
may be worth while to quote an architect's verdict on the general effect
of Wykeham's work in the nave. "If we cannot admire all the details,"
says this writer, "we can but bear tribute to the conception of the
whole. Its lofty arcades give no space for triforium, and the proportion
between the clerestory and the arcade is somewhat unsatisfactory. If we
except the vaulted roof, and the chantry of the great Wykeham himself,
and his predecessor Edingdon, this portion of the church may, with
reason, be considered simple in its character, and bears distinct
evidence of having been grafted on earlier work. The Norman columns
still remain in one or two places towards the east end of the nave
arcade, but with the exception of these and of the Norman masonry
existing in the piers on the south, and perhaps portions of the aisle
walls, all is transformed to Perpendicular detail" (_The Builder_,
October 1892).

[Illustration: THE NAVE, LOOKING EAST. _S.B. Bolas & Co., Photo._]