high as to partly block
the arch. It is built, to a great extent, at any rate, of old materials,
for on both sides of it are to be seen stones with fragments of plaited
Norman diapers. The purpose of this masonry has been the subject of much
discussion. It was at one time generally believed to have been raised,
as a buttress, to aid the pier in supporting the weight of the tower,
but this notion has since been ridiculed. The tower, we are reminded,
was not raised until 1343; the stability of its piers had been secured
before this date by the two new bays of the nave, and additional support
can not have been needed. Others suppose that the masonry belonged to
the stone screen spoken of above. A fine walled up arch on the north
side adds to rather than lessens our difficulties. It has good
mouldings,--springing from the capitals of two Purbeck marble shafts, of
which the eastern has unfortunately been broken away,--and the dripstone
terminates in a head, so mutilated that the face is quite lost. This
archway seems too wide to have been the entrance to the stairs leading
to the rood loft, a use which has been suggested for it. The occurrence
of the above-mentioned fragments of diapers on the wall within the arch,
as well as on the other side of the mass, may perhaps justify us in
concluding that these two surfaces are both of the same date, and that
the archway was walled up originally.

[Illustration: CAPITAL, SOUTH ARCADE OF NAVE (H. P. CLIFFORD DEL.).]

It seems possible that we have, after all, a buttress to deal with here.
It is known that the north transept and the north-west tower pier were
raised before the adjoining parts to the south and west, but many have
supposed that the north tower-arch was not thrown across until later. If
it was built at the earlier time, a temporary support to the pier
against its thrust may have been judged expedient, until the new work at
the end of the nave should be completed. The mass that we are discussing
seems to have been hurriedly raised with old materials at hand, and,
from the carelessness which allowed fragments of old ornament to appear
here and there on the surface, not to have been intended to be
permanent. It was not until 1320, or later, apparently, that the design
of rebuilding the nave was finally abandoned, and a junction of the new
and the Norman work made. It seems, therefore, no great thing to suppose
that the originally temporary support lingered on until 1327, to