I. In the east walls of the north choir-aisle and the Lady chapel three small rude arches have recently been found, and outside, in the gardens, the foundations of the walls of three apses. Hence it has been concluded that we have here the eastern termination of Frideswide’s eighth-century church. It may be so, but the central arch seems very small for the chancel-arch of an aisled church. It is indeed a foot wider than the chancel-arch of the Saxon church at Bradford-on-Avon, but that tiny church has no aisles. Moreover, if the side-arches led into aisles, they would be likely to be of the same height, whereas the southern arch is considerably the higher of the two. [Illustration: NAVE.] II. At some later period—perhaps in the eighth or ninth century—the foundation was converted into one of secular canons, married priests taking the place of the nuns (cf. Ely). The secular canons themselves in turn gave way to monks, and these in 1111 to regular canons—_i.e._, canons living in monastic fashion under the rule (_regula_) of St. Augustine, as at Bristol, Ripon, and Carlisle. The first business, probably, of the secular canons was to house themselves—_i.e._, to build themselves the usual cloister, with its appanages of chapter-house, refectory, dormitory, etc. Of the chapter-house which they built, _c._ 1125, the doorway still remains. In 1004 King Ethelred had rebuilt the Saxon church; and probably it was found possible to put this church into such repair as would allow the services to be held in it for the time being. At any rate, it was not till 1158 that they commenced the present cathedral, which they finished in 1180, leaving not a stone standing of Ethelred’s cathedral. Of the theory that the present cathedral is in the main the one built in 1004, I would prefer to say nothing, had it not been adopted in a recent history of the cathedral; suffice to say that, like the sister theory that Waltham Abbey was built in 1060, it is an absolute impossibility. The hands of the archæological clock cannot be turned 160 years back in this preposterous fashion.