t planned, they embarked on extensive operations
which were by some regarded not only as unessential, but as going beyond
legitimate restoration; in fact, as was pointed out by more than one, it
was not unlike an attempt to restore the nave of Winchester Cathedral by
clearing out first all the work of William of Wykeham. There was much to
be said in favour of lowering the floor, but the building of the apse
was open to considerable question, and there is but little doubt that
had the restorers commenced the destruction of the east wall at the top,
instead of at the bottom, and so discovered the ruins of the great
traceried windows, they would have paused in their scheme; but the
position of the fringe factory prevented this, and it was only many
years after the ambulatory arcade of the apse had been completed that
this discovery was made. The question of whether there ought to have
been an apse according to Austin Canon rule was not properly considered,
but when it was found, after the walls of Purgatory had been removed,
that there were no traces of any foundations to the missing central
piers, some doubt as to the correctness of the course they were
following was necessarily suggested. It was then, however, thought to be
too late to alter the plans, the most important part of the east wall
having then been destroyed, and the result is that we now have a Norman
apse of uncertain authority, crowned with a lofty traceried clerestory,
which, though a clever architectural composition, is only a modern
makeshift. In place of this, had the fifteenth century east wall been
preserved, we should have had in the upper part the two great windows,
much of the tracery of which still remains, and beneath them the reredos
might have been renewed. In this case the eastern portion of Roger de
Walden's screen, with its doorway, would have been saved, and Sir Walter
Mildmay's picturesque monument been left intact, making altogether a
more beautiful sacrarium, and a much more truthful representation of
what had once been, than the doubtful restoration of the rude Norman
apse.

In succeeding years the work of restoration went on slowly, but much was
achieved. The great schemes of the earlier restorers were wisely
reviewed, and reasonable limitations acknowledged. All idea of
rebuilding the nave was abandoned, and the rude brick wall which had
been built to the west end of the choir was refaced in a seemly but
permanent manner. The south tr