strate," etc., etc.

THE CHAPTER-HOUSE STAIRCASE is entered by the doorway in the eastern
aisle of the north transept. There are few things in English
architecture that can be compared with it for strange impressive
beauty; the staircase goes upward for eighteen steps and then part of
it sweeps off to the chapter-house on the right, while the other part
goes on and up till it reaches the chain-bridge; thus the steps lie,
worn here and there by the tread of many feet, like fallen leaves, the
last of them lost in the brighter light of the bridge. Here one is
still almost within the cathedral, and yet the carts are passing
underneath, and their rattle mixes with the sound of the organ within.

The date of the staircase is clearly somewhere between that of the
chapter-house and that of the church itself. It is later than the
church, for it is built up against the transept buttresses, and it
contains some of the best examples of simple geometrical tracery,
while there are nothing but lancet windows in the church of Reginald
and Jocelin. But the simple geometrical tracery of its two four-light
windows prove that it was finished before the chapter-house was begun.
The arches of these windows are rampant, to follow the level of the
stairs; their beautiful circular tracery is massive, deeply-moulded,
and filled with remnants of rich glass; their shafts of blue lias have
naturalistic capitals which are in striking contrast both to the Early
English carving in the church and the full Decorated of the
chapter-house itself. Below the windows is a stone bench rising in
steps with a foot-pace of similar construction; this arrangement adds
much to the effect of the staircase, though it is marred by a modern
hand-rail.

Before the Chain Gate was made, the vestibule ended with a graceful
window of four lights similar to those at the side. The upper part of
the window remains, but the lower part is occupied by a Perpendicular
doorway, and the whole now forms a screen which, by breaking the
light, adds considerably to the charm of the staircase. Through this
doorway, where they are cut away to allow the door to open, the steps
continue for two stages, but in a narrower flight. Here the windows
are Perpendicular, and the vaulted ceiling has given place to a wooden
roof, for this is the Chain Gate, as light and pretty within as
without. It was only an after-thought, a matter of convenience, thus
to connect the chapter-house with the Vicar