IV. This fine Norman church only existed in its entirety for a century. Its eastern limb was less than half the length of the present choir, which was commenced _c._ 1230 by Archbishop Gray, who built the great transept of York and the west front of Ripon. The plan is practically that of Worcester, (the eastern portion of which was finished _c._ 1218), but on a humbler scale: viz., an aisled choir for the canons, a tiny eastern transept (such a one was still in existence in the Transitional choir of York), and a long presbytery, the two eastern bays of which were without aisles. Externally this gives a beautiful composition even now. Before its mutilation, the Southwell choir must have been one of the best mediæval designs in Europe. Unfortunately the roofs have been lowered, and in the flattened battlemented eastern gable a most misshapen window now appears. Originally there were no external flying-buttresses (cf. Salisbury); the clerestory wall began to bulge out; the high roofs of the eastern transepts were taken down, and external flying-buttresses were erected (_c._ 1355). Take these away, in imagination, raise roofs and gables to as sharp a pitch as those of Beverley and Lincoln, and you have a design as noble as it is simple. The alternation of aisled choir and unaisled presbytery with the fine projecting masses of the eastern transepts provides charming contrasts of light and shadow; the base-courses are almost as strong and emphatic as at Salisbury; the sharply chamfered buttresses, with their acute pyramidal caps—a reminiscence of Lincoln nave—are particularly effective. Contrary to Salisbury fashion, the windows are deeply recessed externally. The whole design is vigorous and original. [Illustration: CHOIR, NORTH SIDE.] The interior of the choir is equally original and interesting. The architect seems to have thought that the vaults of the choir must rise no higher than the eastern arch of the tower. If so, he was mistaken; as may be seen at Norwich, where the choir rises much higher than the nave. His problem then was how to get the appearance without the reality of height in the triforium. The same problem had troubled the Norman builders at Dunstable, Jedburgh, and Oxford; they had solved it by constructing a lofty pier-arcade, and then building the triforium _beneath_ it. The Norman builders at Steyning, and the architects of Southwell and Pershore choirs—which were going up together—solved the difficulty in a different and more effective manner: viz., by inserting the triforium inside the clerestory. This saved the elevation. The pier-arcade was tall, the clerestory was tall, and the whole interior looked tall and not squat.