THE STALLS.—These are in the Geometrical style (1245-1315), and were executed about the middle of the period. “The beauty and variety of the carvings are wonderful. There is no repetition; and the grace and elegance, as well as the fidelity, with which the foliage is represented, are nowhere to be surpassed. The human heads are full of expression; and the monkeys and other animals sporting among the branches have all the same exquisite finish. Here are also interesting misereres” (Murray). [Illustration: FERETORY.] THE PRESBYTERY.—The space between the central tower and retro-choir was occupied by the Norman choir, less its apse, up to about 1320, when this choir was pulled down and the present pier-arcade was built, with the clerestory; which latter, however, received new window-tracery in the sixteenth century. To the same period, the Curvilinear, but a little later, belongs the exquisite series of nine tabernacles in the retro-choir, on the wall at the back of the feretory; the naturalistic foliage of which is perhaps the best work in the cathedral. Below is an original entrance to the crypt, now called the “Holy Hole.” Above it accordingly is the inscription: “Corpora sanctorum sunt hic in pace sepulta Ex meritis quorum fulgent miracula multa.” THE NAVE.—We now pass into the south aisle of the nave. The nave is of exceptional interest, for three reasons. In the first place, for its vast length of 12 bays of 250 feet. Norwich has 14 bays of 230 feet. Secondly, because, after the work at Gloucester, it is the earliest work we possess in the Perpendicular style. Thirdly, because its Perpendicular vesture is little more than skin deep, the solid core of every pier and every wall, from pavement to roof, being Norman. It is just this combination of the massive solidity of Romanesque with the grace and elegance of Gothic which makes it what it is, the finest nave in the country. The walls are Norman; built, in Norman fashion, of rather small and square blocks; they are thick, nearly 10 feet thick at the top; outside the south aisle may still be seen the flat Norman buttresses; hidden behind the balustrade of the clerestory are the upper arches of the Norman triforium, one of which we saw in the south transept. The vault rests on the original Norman vaulting-shafts, though they are stopped by Perpendicular capitals. They are not really stopped, however; for when we mount up to the back of the vault we find the vaulting-shaft, piercing _through_ the vault, rising to the very top of the wall, to support, as they once supported, a wooden ceiling like that of Peterborough. Near the eastern end of the south aisle the lower part of a Norman shaft has been left; probably because it was covered up by some later shrine or altar. Crossing the nave, still clearer evidence of the character of the early work is to be seen in the second and third piers from the east of the north arcade. These were covered up by a great rood-screen, now destroyed.