slanting inwards in a rather
awkward manner, support the curious pediment-shaped canopy over the
doorway. At the commencement of this fine passage, just within the
doorway, is a small vault supported on extremely odd corbels, as if
the mason had taken advantage of the obscurity to wanton with his
craft. One is a large head with enormous cheeks, apparently suffering
from acute neuralgia; a handkerchief, under which a few
comically-stiff curls escape, covers the head and is tied under the
chin; another represents two dragons biting each other, with a head
upside down beneath them; another, which reminds one of the worst
eccentricities of modern crockery, is formed by a hand holding a
foliated capital. I suppose that the head with swollen cheeks is
really another testimony to St. William Bytton's power over the
toothache. The undercroft itself was finished before 1286, perhaps
some time before; but the more advanced sculpture of the passage looks
as if that part were built in the "toothache" period--that is to say,
some ten years or so after Bytton's death in 1274.

[Illustration: Chapter-House--Undercroft.]

Certainly the bosses of the vault in the passage beyond the doorway
are of a character that suggests the transition to Decorated which was
in progress at this time. They are elaborate, and, with one exception,
through-carved. The first from the door represents a head, the next an
_Agnus Dei_, the next two grotesque heads joined together, then
apparently the Serpent tempting Eve, then an ox, dragons, two small
grinning heads, with animals apparently biting them on one side. The
corbels are carved into heads, some crowned, others reversed with the
shaft in their mouths. On the right-hand side, as one enters the
undercroft, a pretty stone lantern projects from the wall; of the
little mullions which form its face, one is set far enough from the
wall to admit of the insertion of a lamp.

Two heavy wooden doors at the entrance leave no doubt as to the
purpose for which the undercroft was built. The outer door is the most
massive; it is studded with nails, and has two great bolts and a huge
lock: on the outer side a kind of escutcheon is formed round the
keyhole by a heart-shaped piece of iron, surmounted by a cross; on the
same side there is an iron bar, and the hook to hold it across the
doorway. A deep hole has been worn in the pavement by the feet of
those who pulled open the door. The inner door is lighter, and
orn