From the west door there is a superb view eastwards. The grandeur of the interior of the cathedral is much enhanced by the raising of the choir. This raising of the choir is due, however, to no æsthetic preferences on the part of the architects, nor to any wish to emphasise the importance of the clergy, but simply to the fact that there is a substructure below the choir. Here, as at Canterbury and York, it is a crypt. At Wimborne minster, Hythe church, and Hereford cathedral, it seems to be no more than a processional path, or else a charnel-house. Imposing, however, as this vista is, it is not so long as it might be, and it appears shorter than it really is. In the first place, out of the whole internal length of 526 feet, only 338 feet come into the vista. This is because De Lucy kept his retro-choir so low. Far nobler would have been the interior of Winchester, if, as at Ely, York, and Lincoln, retro-choir and eastern chapels had been kept as high as presbytery and nave. Indeed, the Winchester vista of 338 feet is surpassed even by that of the small cathedral of Lichfield, 371 feet. Secondly, owing to the destruction of screens, the apparent length has been greatly diminished. Formerly there were two solid screens: a rood-screen in the nave, three bays east of the tower; and a choir-screen. Thirdly, as at St. Paul’s, the great wall of the reredos is far too lofty, and is placed much too close to the east end of the presbytery, shearing off another 20 feet of the apparent length of the interior. This reredos, indeed, beautiful as its detail must have been, is a vast mediæval blunder—_i.e._ from an artistic point of view; which point of view, to tell the truth, the mediæval architects cared little about in comparison with the religious purposes which they wished their architecture to subserve. Still here, as at St. Saviour’s, Southwark, one cannot help wishing the reredos away; one would like to see once more behind and above the high altar, on their lofty platform, the shrines of St. Swithun and St. Birinus, and on either side of them such delightful peeps as one has at Wells into retro-choir and eastern chapels. Beaufort’s reredos has much to answer for. In the south arcade of the nave are the two earliest of the magnificent series of chantries which are the especial glory of Winchester. They should be examined in chronological order. They are those of the following bishops: Edingdon, died 1366; Wykeham, died 1404; Beaufort, died 1447; Waynflete, died 1486; Fox, died 1528; Gardiner, died 1555. Thus they form a continuous record of the growth and development of Perpendicular and Tudor architecture from 1366 to 1555.