s not the first. Again, it is doubtful whether the
sub-title "Overie" means "of the ferry," or "over the river," or
whether the form "Overies," which the word sometimes takes, does not
suggest a derivation from "Ofers," "of the bank or shore," a meaning
contained in the modern German _Ufer_. John Overy, or Overs, was the
father of Mary, but whether the surname was derived from the place, or
_vice versa_, is uncertain. In any case, the name, whether by accident
or design, includes a reference to the foundress as well as to the
locality of her foundation.[2]

Stow is obviously wrong, however, as to the person who converted the
House of Sisters into a College of Priests, who was not a lady, but
St. Swithun, Bishop of Winchester (852-862), whose devotion to the
building of churches and bridges is well known.

The character of the foundation, altered by St. Swithun, was again
altered in 1106, under Bishop William Giffard, with the co-operation
of the two Norman knights to whom Stow refers. They not only erected
the first Norman nave, but made a radical change within by abolishing
the "College of Priests," in whose place they introduced "Canons
regular" of the Augustinian Order, governed by a Prior, thus
transforming the Collegiate Church into a monastery. Except as regards
the sex of the inmates, the change was a reversion to the idea of the
foundress.[3]

The Norman work of this period is the earliest of which any traces
remain in the present church, unless the doubtful signs on a shaft in
the exterior are to be taken as evidence of Saxon workmanship. This
shaft is attached to the north wall of the Chapel of St.
John-the-Divine (now used as a clergy vestry), which is perhaps the
oldest part of the fabric. The undoubted Norman remains consist of
three arches in the same chapel, where their outline is just
discernible among the brickwork; the fragment of a string-course, with
billet moulding, on the inner wall of the north transept; a portion of
the Prior's entrance to the cloisters; the old Canons' doorway; and an
arcaded recess. Of these, it may be briefly remarked that the remains
of the Prior's door, showing the mutilated shafts and the zigzag
moulding of the jambs, are preserved, _in situ_, in the outer face of
the north wall to the new nave. The outline of the Canons' entrance,
obviously of much simpler moulding, will be seen on the inner side of
the same wall, towards the west end. The Norman recess lies still
fart