To interfere with the services as little as possible, the eastern half was built first, as at Rochester and Worcester. When this was finished, the western half was built. If the foliage of the beautiful capitals and corbels and bosses be examined carefully, it will be found to be somewhat stiff and formal in the eastern bays, and to be worked with much more crispness and freedom towards the west (cf. Worcester). The next thing was to pull down the Norman choir, the material of which is found to be largely built up in the western, but not in the eastern bays. In rebuilding the western bays, the first consideration was not to bring down the Norman tower. So the work was not continued from the east, but was started afresh from the tower. The two portions met in the fourth bay; when it was found that, owing to inaccurate setting-out, the arch on the south side of the choir and the string-course on the north side were at a different level to that of the older work to the east. The awkward junction of the arches was masked by a curious medallion. The whole of the work was done late in the Lancet period; as is shown by the frequent use of the triple roll in the bases, and by the fact that the tooth-ornament is worked on a projecting fillet, as in the north transept of Hereford, instead of being set in a hollow. The vault of the aisles and transept is quinquepartite, as in St. Hugh’s aisles and transept at Lincoln; the high vault is quadripartite; and both vaults have the wobbling longitudinal rib of the great transept of Lincoln. At the east end this rib drops down somewhat fortuitously into the middle of a group of lancets. A special local note of this Southwell work is fondness for fillets; they abound everywhere. V. A little later, the eastern apse of the north transept was replaced by a double chapel (_c._ 1260). The shafts have the “keel-moulding,” both here and in the chapter-house. [Illustration: NAVE, LOOKING EAST.] VI. Next was built the cloister—_i.e._, the southern part of the Vestibule leading to the chapter-house. Notice the lovely doorway in the north choir-aisle. In this and the arcade is early naturalistic foliage, which fixes the date as _c._ 1280. Before the upper story was built, and when the eastern arcade was open, it must have been singularly beautiful. From the little courtyard between the cloister and the eastern transept the views are most picturesque.