age
having been done in the transept.

The west front which he rebuilt, though not altogether satisfactory, yet
is greatly superior in design to his subsequent work at the south and
north ends of the transept. These originally had corner turrets,
octagonal in plan; these turrets were pulled down and square ones,
finished by pyramidal caps, put in their place. The entire south front
of the transept was pulled down and rebuilt, and a new window consisting
of five lancets occupying its whole width inserted. The central light
rises high into the gable and above the level of the inner ceiling. The
lancets on either side are intermediate in height between the central
and side ones when they are seen from without, but when seen from within
the tops of all are of the same height, as they could not be raised
above the level of the ceiling. The parts of the three middle lancets
seen from without above this level are backed up with black felt across
the ceiling, and their upper parts light the space between the ceiling
and the high roof. This window is a feeble imitation of the "Five
Sisters" of York, and is utterly out of place in the narrow transept at
St. Albans; but bad as this south window is, the one at the north end of
the transept is worse. Here Lord Grimthorpe inserted a circular window,
the design being such as a child might make who was given a sheet of
cardboard with a large circle drawn on it, which he was requested to
cover symmetrically with a number of half-crowns, shillings, and
sixpences. Another piece of unnecessary alteration was the destruction
of the slype at the south end and the re-erection of its disjointed
members as curiosities in the new work, its western doorway, with an
added order, having been let into the centre of the south wall of the
transept, and the arcading placed in two different positions.

[Illustration: THE ARCADE IN THE SLYPE BEFORE ITS REMOVAL.]

More satisfactory is the work in the Lady Chapel and the space sometimes
called the antechapel; here the old carving had been terribly mutilated
by many generations of schoolboys, and the new work which has been put
in is good of its kind, and distinctive in its treatment. Lord
Grimthorpe vaulted the Lady Chapel in stone. Much other work was done by
him in various parts of the building. He rebuilt the clerestory windows
of the presbytery and some of those in the nave; introduced windows into
the blank walls at the western part of the nave, bot