The theory that the paintings of the choir had been re-painted before their defacement by buff wash seems hardly likely from the state reported by the restorers. The idea probably arose from an extract, itself possibly interpolated, frequently quoted from one edition of Defoe's "Tour through the Island of Great Britain:" "The choir resembles a theatre rather than a venerable choir of a church; it is painted white with the panels golden, and groups and garlands of roses and other flowers intertwined run round the top of the stalls; each stall hath the arms of its holder in gilt letters or blue writ on it; and the episcopal throne with Bishop Ward's arms upon it would make a fine theatrical decoration, being supported by gilt pillars and painted with flowers upon white all over. The roof of the choir hath some fresh painting, containing several saints as big as life, each in a circle by itself and holding a label in their hands telling who they are. The altar piece is very mean, and behind this altar, in the Virgin Mary's Chapel, are some very good monuments." But in the first edition of the same book Defoe himself says: "The inside is certainly hurt by the paltry old paintings in and over the choir, and the whitewashing badly done, wherein they have very stupidly everywhere drawn black lines to imitate joints of stone." In another edition of 1724 the passage reads: "The painting in the choir is mean and more like the ordinary method of Common Drawing Room or Tavern painting than that of a church." Whatever be the actual value of the painting on its own merits, as a record faithfully transcribed of very early roof-decoration, it has an interest of its own far beyond much more important work of later periods. [Illustration: THE CHOIR, LOOKING WEST. _From a Photograph by Messrs. Carl Norman and Co._]