The ritual choir of the canons included the transept crossing as well as one bay of the parish nave, but at a later date the ritual and the new architectural choirs were made to correspond, and the present stone rood-screen was erected. It dates from the time of Edward III. It has a plain base, surmounted with a row of panelled quatrefoils, over which is a string-course with a double tier of canopied niches. The whole screen is massive and of superb workmanship. The choir is of Perpendicular architecture, lighted by four lofty windows on each side. There is no triforium, its place being occupied with panelling. On each side of the choir are fifteen stalls with quaintly carved misericords. The presbytery stands on a Norman crypt, and is backed by a stone reredos far exceeding in beauty the somewhat similar screens at Winchester, Southwark, and St. Albans. It is of three stories, with five compartments in each tier, and represents the genealogy of our Lord. The screen is flanked on the north side by the Salisbury Chapel. In the crypt beneath is the chantry of de Redvers, now walled up to form a family vault for the Earls of Malmesbury, lay rectors of the church. The Lady Chapel is vaulted like the choir, from which it is an eastern extension, and has a superb reredos dating from the time of Henry VI. The Chapel contains several tombs and monuments, including that of Thomas, Lord West, who bequeathed six thousand marks to maintain a chantry of six priests. Beneath the tower is the marble monument by Weekes to the memory of the poet Shelley, who was drowned by the capsizing of a boat in the Gulf of Spezzia in 1822. Below the name "Percy Bysshe Shelley" are the following lines from his "Adonais":-- "He has outsoared the shadow of our night; Envy and calumny and hate and pain, And that unrest which men miscall delight, Can touch him not and torture not again: From the contagion of the world's slow stain He is secure, and now can never mourn A heart grown cold, a head grown grey in vain; Nor, when the spirits' self has ceased to burn, With sparkless ashes load an unlamented urn". At the Reformation the domestic buildings were pulled down, and the old Priory church became the parish church of Christchurch. The last Prior was John Draper II, vicar of Puddletown, Dorset, and titular Bishop of Neapolis. He surrendered the Priory on 28th November, 1539, when he received a pension of _L_133, 6_s._ 8_d._; and was allowed to retain Somerford Grange during his life. The original document reads:-- "To John Draper, Bishop of Neapolytan, late prior there (Christchurch), _L_133, 6_s._ 8_d._; also the manor of Somerford, called the Prior's lodging, parcel of the manor of Somerford, being part of the said late monastery, for term of life of the said bishop without anything yielding or paying thereof."