Accordingly, a careful search was made by Dean Perowne and the clerk of the works, to the north of the great central tower, and bordering on the south end of the north transept; when the accuracy of their calculations was proved, and their labours rewarded by the discovery, immediately under the pavement, of an underground chamber measuring six feet three inches in length, by four feet wide, and six feet high. A curved flight of steps rises from one side of the chamber, whilst a straight flight leads off at one end, and both ascend directly to the floor of the church above. The vault was found to be filled with all sorts of apparent rubbish in stone and metal. On close inspection, however, much of this proved to be parts of the choir-screen, which, from its great beauty, had been the glory of the church and the admiration of historians for centuries, but which, at the sacking of the church by Cromwell’s soldiers in 1643, had been pulled to the ground with ropes, and then smashed to pieces. The rest of the contents consisted of pieces of stone, forming parts of what had once been, apparently, a reredos; bits of stained glass, which lost their colour on exposure to the air; fragments of broken swords and pikes; pieces of leathern scabbards; bits of charred wood; and a quantity of bones of animals, probably sheep, which had been used for food. On the chamber being cleared and closely examined, competent authorities pronounced the floor to be much older work than the rest of the vault, and it is not impossible that this might have been part of the floor of the original Saxon church. It was composed of large flags, several of which had been violently disturbed, possibly by Cromwell’s looters, in their search for spoil, and in the thought of finding another hidden chamber still lower down. Whether or not they found any valuables does not appear to be known; but the supposition is that they did not, or it would have been referred to by contemporary historians.