=St. Hugh's choir= is in four bays, the westernmost of which is somewhat narrower than the others. In the original piers, the central column was diamond-shaped, surrounded by eight circular shafts, which were detached, a mark of their early period. "The foliage of the capitals is exquisitely beautiful, and though distinguished technically by the name of _stiff-leaf foliage_, because there are stiff stalks to the leaves rising from the ring of the capital, the leaves themselves curl over in the most graceful manner, with a freedom and elegance not exceeded at any subsequent period. The mouldings are also as bold and as deep as possible, and there is scarcely a vestige of Norman character remaining in any part of the work" (_Rickman_). In each bay of the triforium there are two arches, both divided into two sub-arches, with a solid tympanum pierced with a trefoil or quatrefoil. The eastern bay of the triforium on each side is of simpler design than the rest. In the clerestory, there are three windows to three bays, and two to the fourth, on each side. The fall of the central tower in 1237-9 worked great havoc in this part of the building. The vault was crushed, and the western bays were much weakened and damaged. The original slender shafts round the two westernmost piers on each side were converted into clumsy columns without capitals; this no doubt added considerable strength, but rendered them far from beautiful. The arches, too, had to be partly reconstructed. In the first arch on the south side, the rings of stone across the mouldings mark the point where the later work joined the earlier, but did not quite fit. A similar example of faulty jointing will be seen on the corresponding arch on the north side towards the aisle. Turning to the triforium, we see that in the western bays clumsy eight-lobed pillars have taken the place of the original clustered shafts. These have been compared by Precentor Venables to "pounds of candles." They are certainly very ugly, and were probably intended only as a temporary makeshift. The crooked state of some of the trefoils and quatrefoils of the tympana is probably due to the same cause. The vault is most remarkable, and is fortunately unique. "The architect has made each cell strike obliquely to points dividing the central ridge of the bay into three equal parts, so that neither the cells nor the diagonal ribs from either side ever meet one another, but each cell is met by an intermediate or an oblique transverse rib from the opposite side" (_Scott_, "Lectures on Mediæval Architecture"). As this vault appears to have been constructed after the fall of the tower, we can hardly consider the deviation to be the result of inexperience, and there seems to be no excuse for this extraordinary freak. The shafts supporting the vault are alternately hexagonal and circular. They were originally carried down to the springing of the great arches, and thence continued in front of the piers to the ground.