vely view
westward, two pillars rising in the roof and across the top of the
reredos, to the right the Norman arches of the north transept, and further
on still the nave.

The Lady Chapel was used for very many years as a library, and after 1862
as the church of the parish of St. John the Baptist, which surrounds the
cathedral, and claimed to hold its service in some part of the building.

*The Crypt* is entered from the south side of the Lady Chapel where a
porch opens to a staircase leading down. The porch is deeply in-set, and
like the crypt itself and the Lady Chapel, Early English. Professor Willis
points out that Hereford is the only English cathedral whose crypt is
later in date than the eleventh century; the well-known examples at
Canterbury, Rochester, Worcester, Winchester, and Gloucester all belonging
to earlier times. A flight of twenty steps leads down to the crypt, which
is now light and dry, although previous to Dean Merewether's excavations
it was utterly neglected and nearly choked up with rubbish. There is
another approach to it from the interior of the church.

[Illustration: THE CRYPT.]

THE CRYPT.

_Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo._

It is 50 feet in length, and consists of a nave and aisles marked out by
undecorated columns. It runs beneath the whole extent of the Lady Chapel.

This crypt having been used as a charnel-house is called the "Golgotha."
In the centre is an altar tomb, upon which is a large and elaborately
decorated alabaster slab, in a fair state of preservation. It bears an
incised representation of Andrew Jones, a Hereford merchant, and his wife,
with an inscription setting forth how he repaired the crypt in 1497.
Scrolls proceeding from the mouths of the figures bear the following
lines:--

"Remember thy life may not ever endure,
That thou dost thiself thereof art thou sewre.

But and thou leve thi will to other menis cure,
And thou have it after, it is but a venture."

At the back of the reredos is a brass to Mr. Bailey, M.P. for the county,
whose bust formerly stood here, but was removed to a more fitting position
in the county hall.

*The Vicars' Cloisters.*--The entrance to the college of Vicars Choral is
from the south side of the Lady Chapel. Leading from the south-east
transept of the cathedral to the quadrangle of the college is a long
cloister walk.

In the morning, when the sun shines upon the cloi