k screen
which formerly was placed across the south transept, run across the
western ends of the choir aisles, so that when the doors of these and of
the rood screen are locked, the eastern arm of the cross is entirely
shut off from the rest of the church.

[Illustration: THE ROOD SCREEN.]

[Illustration: STALL SEAT. South Side.]

[Illustration: STALL SEAT. North Side.]

[Illustration: STALL SEAT. North Side.]

The #Choir# is entirely Perpendicular in character, and it seems to
have been begun in the time of Henry VI. but not to have been completed
until the time of Henry VII., and some of the carving of the stalls
is of still later date. Leland says of it, "Baldwin, Earl of Devon,
was the first founder, and his successors to the time of Isabella de
Fortibus,[5] and at present the Earls of Salisbury are regarded as
founders." Four large clerestory windows on either side light the choir.
The wall beneath these is continued downwards to the floor, but under
each window a low obtusely-pointed depressed archway is cut leading
into the aisles. Between the bottom of each clerestory window and the
heads of these arches the wall is panelled as with window mullions
and tracery, so that the appearance from the inner side may be best
understood by imagining that each window extended from floor to roof,
but that the upper part alone is glazed, the lower cut away for the arch
leading into the aisle, and the lower lights beneath the transom blocked
up with masonry. These lower arches are more or less blocked up.
The Salisbury chapel blocks up the north-eastern one completely; the
sedilia, no doubt, occupied the opposite one, where now a modern altar
tomb may be seen. The next on each side to the west is open, and flights
of steps under them lead down to the aisles; the woodwork at the back
of the choir stalls close the remaining two on the inside, and on the
outside chantry chapels, opening one into the north one into the south
aisle, stand under the second arch on each side counting from the rood
screen. The upper stalls number in all thirty-six, fifteen on either
side, and six with their backs to the rood screen. There is, also,
a lower range of stalls on the north and south. The prior's and
sub-prior's stalls on either side the doorway in the screen looking
east are canopied, as also is the precentor's at the east end of the
south side. The arms of the stalls are quaintly carved with various
grotesque figures, as are also th