sub-bays are recessed square, with the usual Norman roll
moulding, decorated with chevrons, and on the wall face a square billet.
The chevron ornament is absent in the earlier work in the choir and
transepts. The triforium is almost uniform throughout the whole church.
In each sub-bay it consists of two small arches under one larger one,
with the tympanum solid. Here also the capitals are cushions and
perfectly plain.

[Illustration: Triforium and Clerestory.]

Above the triforium is the clerestory, which contains one light to each
sub-bay, and surmounting all is the vaulting, which springs from the
piers and from grotesquely carved corbels between the triforium arches.
The vaulting ribs are ornamented with chevrons on either side of a bold
semi-circular moulding. So much for the general arrangement of the bays.
Some idea of the massiveness of the structures may be gathered when it
is known that each group of the clustered pillars separating the bays
covers an area of two hundred and twenty-five square feet at its base,
while those of the cylindrical columns of the sub-bays are twelve feet
square, and the columns themselves have a circumference of over
twenty-three feet. There is little room to doubt that the effect
obtained by the old builders of Durham was intentional. The masterly way
in which great masses of solid masonry, greater than was constructively
necessary, are handled, and the reticence and delicacy of the ornament
combine to prove this. There is in the whole scheme a delightful union
of great power and vigour in the masses, and of tenderness and loving
care in the detail.

The #Choir# is the earliest part of the church. Its two western bays
show Carileph's work, but the eastern piers have been considerably
altered owing to the addition at a later period of the eastern transept,
when Carileph's apses were taken down. This bay contains some very rich
and beautiful detail. The piers on either side of the choir are
decorated with arcades, the lower stage having six arches, and the upper
three, all richly carved with foliage in the caps and hood moulds, and
with heads and half figures. There is also a square aumbry on each pier.
Above the upper arcade, which breaks through the level of the triforium
string course, which is also carried round it, there is on each pier a
figure of an angel beneath a canopy. These are the only two figures
remaining of many which formerly added to the beauty of the interior of