s the great
Perpendicular window, now so prominent in the west front.

Sir Gilbert Scott had, with archaeological correctness, left this side of
the screen bare. It was kept so originally on account of the position
before it of the other screen, the one against which St. Nicholas' altar
stood. Earlier attempts than the present one have, however, been made to
ornament it. In 1730 an order was given for the face towards the nave to
be wainscoted, and in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for October, 1798, we
read a criticism of some work then just carried out. We are told of
pointed arches and tracery merely punched out, of crockets and finials
barely hinted without any fine forms or beautiful relief, and of the
lack of any "deep-shadowed infinity of mouldings."

#The Choir# is entered through the iron gates in the central doorway of
the screen. The height of its floor above that of the nave is due to the
splendid crypt on which it stands. It is all, excepting one or two
features which we must point out later, in the Early English style, and
was finished early in the thirteenth century.

Very noticeable to everyone coming into this part of the church is the
great, some think excessive, use made of the famous dark marble from the
quarries of Purbeck, in the vaulting and other shafts, in their bands,
and in the string-courses that divide the stories. These, though now so
dull, will admit of a high polish, but, unfortunately, do not retain it
long. A small specimen in the south choir transept shows how beautiful
the polished stone is. Polishing would probably also relieve them of
their present rather heavy effect. The shafts generally spring from the
ground, from bases of the coarser Petworth or Bethersden marble, and
some of them have caps of hard stone. Above the choir stalls the main
groups of vaulting shafts rise from finely carved brackets, of which two
are here illustrated (pp. 88, 91), and the intermediate single ones from
carved corbel heads, all of the same fine material as the shafts
themselves. Some of these ornaments were, when uncovered in 1840, "very
skilfully restored in mastic by Mr. Hamerton, a sculptor in the employ
of Mr. Cottingham."

[Illustration: THE CHOIR SCREEN: DEAN SCOTT MEMORIAL
(FROM A DRAWING BY R. J. BEALE).]

The vaulting is worthy of attention and is generally sexpartite in plan,
although the simpler quadripartite form occurs in places. An inequality
in the division of the side cells of the tra