ngton in the _Nugae Antiquae_ (ii. 148) says of these
two heads that "the old men of Wells had a tradition, that, when there
should be such a king and such a bishop, then the church should be in
danger of ruin." At the time of the Reformation it was noticed that
the head of the king bore a certain resemblance to Henry VIII., and
that the king held in his hands a child falling, who, it was said,
could be none other than Edward VI. The peculiarity of the bishop's
figure is that he has women and children about him. "This fruitful
bishop, they affirmed, was Dr Barlow (p. 156), the first married
bishop of Wells, and perhaps of England. This talk being rife in Wells
in Queen Mary's time, made him rather affect Chichester at his return
than Wells, where not only the things that were ruined but those that
remained, served for records and remembrances of his sacrilege."

The west end of the nave is covered in its lower portion by an arcade
of five arches with Purbeck shafts, the middle one being wider than
the rest, to contain the two smaller arches of the doorway. The three
lancet windows were re-modelled in Perpendicular times by the
insertion of the triple shafts, which have the casement mouldings and
angular caps of the period; but the dog-tooth moulding of the arches,
the medallions in the spandrels, and the little corbel heads of the
Early English work remain. A Perpendicular parapet along the sill of
the window marks the gallery which, pierced through the splays,
carries the triforium passage round the end of the nave. A string
course runs along the bottom of this gallery and forms the bases of
the triple shafts; the bases are supported on corbels which die off
upon the sloping wall below. This wall conceals a curious gallery, the
purpose of which is not known; it is entered by steps from the
triforium, and lighted by round openings which can be seen in the
central quatrefoils of the west front; when these quatrefoils were
filled with sculpture it would have been difficult to detect the
existence of the dark gallery.

[Illustration: Specimens Of Capitals.]

Two small transepts at the west end of the nave are formed by the
western towers, which project in this church beyond the aisles. These
transepts are connected with the aisles by an arch, the lower part of
which is closed by wooden doors. That on the north was used as a
chapel of the Holy Cross, and of late years as the consistory court:
it is now the choir-boys' ve