=The South Chapel Aisle.=--On coming through the east door of the south choir aisle we enter the Chapel of King Edward the Confessor, and we notice on the right a Decorated recess said to have contained the monument of a priest; but the great buttresses, which meet the eye looking east, are only temporary supports and in no sense form part of the original design. Opposite the Decorated recess is the tomb of a knight (8), but unfortunately this has been badly treated at the hands of the buttress builders. On the north side of the altar is a piscina with a pointed arch, cinquefoiled, and a projecting bracket of singularly bold design which seems to interrupt the Decorated string.[65] A curious groining boss, apparently in order to preserve it, is let into the wall to the west above the piscina. It is carven into the form of three beasts (asses or rabbits) with long ears. The peculiarity of the design, which is met with elsewhere, is that there are only three ears, yet each beast has its full complement. =The Ante-Chapel.=--Briant (p. 57) says this chapel is known locally as the _Chapel of the Seven Sisters_, on account of the seven hideous heads which are said to be types of the beauty of South Wales. We can find no such record. This narrow space, which intervenes between Bishop Vaughan’s Chapel and the Lady Chapel to the east, is separated from the aisles by pairs of very elegant Early English arches north and south, and Freeman is of opinion that they differ slightly in date. The capitals have a delicate nail-head moulding not to be found elsewhere in the cathedral. One of the arches on the southern side has a figure lying down doing duty for a corbel which was designed to carry the vaulting; it is, however, more curious than beautiful. A segmental relieving arch in rough ashlar embraces both arches. In this chapel was found the “Abraham” stone now placed in the south transept (see p. 79). [Illustration: VIEW LOOKING N. IN ANTE-CHAPEL TO LADY CHAPEL.] This chapel is roofed with a neat Perpendicular vault and lit with a poor Perpendicular window, and a couple of depressed arches (_i.e._, with their springing below the capitals) open into the =Lady Chapel=. An enormous buttress, however, is an unsightly necessity to prevent the wall above these arches falling eastwards. Our view (page 67) is taken from the east, looking west, and shows one of these arches and, on the south side, the fine Decorated tomb of Bishop Martyn. The composition was that of a five-foiled arch, with open foliations between crocketed pinnacles rising from octagonal attached shafts with floriated capitals, all beneath a lofty straight-sided canopy. The detail seems to point to Bishop Gower as the author. The canopy blocks an Early Decorated window and cuts through a string, but its finial was evidently utilised as a corbel by Bishop Vaughan for his vaulted roof, traces of which are clearly discernible in the view at the south-west corner.