The westward march of the twin towers of the mediæval cathedrals is curious. In the tenth-century churches, such as S. Ambrogio, Milan, and the later cathedral of S. Abbondio, Como, they flanked the choir; so they did at Canterbury, and in the twelfth-century choir of York; so they may have been meant to do at Lincoln. At Exeter they have marched on, and there occupy the ends of the transepts. Finally, they become the twin western towers which form such a characteristic feature of the façades of the mediæval churches of Northern Europe, but not of Lombardy. [Illustration: FROM SOUTH-WEST.] On the west side of the north-east transept is a unique example of a cathedral dispensary, with triangular recesses in the walls for the drugs. Afterwards a floor was inserted dimway; and to light the darkened lower chambers, windows were cut through the west wall. The shutters of these windows are original, as also the ironwork of the dispensary doorway. The choir ended to the east in a remarkable fashion in a three-sided aisled apse with radiating chapels. This may be due to Hugh’s foreign extraction, or it may be regarded as the legitimate development of such east ends as Gloucester and Tewkesbury. The apsidal termination is shown by incised lines in the pavement of the retro-choir and the south choir aisle. Across the openings of the eastern transepts beams were left from pier to pier, because the fosse of the Roman wall here crossed the choir. The whole choir is full of freaks; the apsidal termination of the choir, the double apses of the eastern transepts, the transeptal towers, the ribbing of the vault, the extraordinary crocketed piers at the entrance of the eastern transepts, the fluted hexagonal shafts, and in the clerestory the miniature arcades and pigeon-holes. The whole design has been claimed as French by M. Corroyer, but M. Viollet-le-Duc’s opinion is decisive on that point: “it is English in its method of construction, in its mouldings, in its ornament, and in execution.” But though English, it is going too far to call it “pure and undefiled Gothic.” The semicircular apses of the eastern transepts are not Gothic; and in Romanesque fashion, the triforium is spanned by transverse stone arches, regardless of the fact that the work they were supposed to do was done in reality by flying-buttresses outside. [Illustration: ST. HUGH’S ARCADE.]