ving of a church with tower and spire on
Draper's chantry, and by a similar representation on a seal, and in
two other parts of the building. It is probable that the original
choir extended westward beyond the transept, as at Westminster to the
present day.

As has been stated above, the Norman church was commenced by Flambard
towards the end of the eleventh century; and of the work so begun, the
earliest existing remains are the arcading of the nave, the triforium,
and the transepts with the eastern apsidal chapel attached to the south
transept. Next to this in order came the walls of the aisles of the
nave, and the cloisters and chapter-house, which, however, have
disappeared; cloisters would come to be considered a necessity as soon
as the secular canons were superseded by regulars. The early English
clerestory of the nave seems to have been built in the time of the third
prior, Peter, about the beginning of the thirteenth century. To the end
of same century may be approximately assigned the vaulting of the nave
aisles, the north porch, and a chapel attached to the north transept.
Alterations of an extensive nature seem to have been begun in the
fourteenth century; for to this date belong the rood screen, placed
farther to the east than the old division between the ritual choir of
the canons and the western part of the nave, which was probably given up
to the lay dwellers in the parish,--and the splendid reredos. The Lady
Chapel also was completed certainly before 1406, probably eleven years
earlier. The fifteenth century saw the western tower built and the choir
commenced and a great part of it finished, though the vaulting seems not
to have been completed until the early part of the sixteenth century, as
W. E. the initials of William Eyre, who was prior from 1502 to 1520, are
to be seen on the bosses and the arch of the south choir aisle. Somewhat
later still is the chantry at the east end of the south choir aisle,
built by the last prior and dated 1529, and the chantry built by the
last of the Plantagenets, Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, daughter of
the Earl of Clarence and mother of Cardinal Pole, who at the age of
seventy was executed by Henry VIII. in 1541.

Shortly before the dissolution in 1536 Prior Draper addressed a
petition to Henry VIII. which is still in existence in the Record
Office, praying that he would spare the Priory church, basing his
request upon the desolate character of the district, the p