Jutting out from the tower, westward, is the so-called Galilee Porch. It is conjectured that it was so named because, as Galilee was the district of the Holy Land furthest from Jerusalem, so this western porch was the part of the sacred building farthest from the High Altar. Much doubt exists as to the date of this porch. It is commonly said to have been built under Bishop Eustace, who died in 1215; but some authorities hold that it belongs to a somewhat later period, when the style in which it is built had fully developed. Probably it dates from the close of his episcopate. Anyhow, it is a beautiful specimen of that Early English work of which we shall see so much more before we leave the Cathedral. Its walls are thicker than needful if the porch alone were to be considered, and it is thought that it was built thus massively with a view to acting as a buttress to the tower, which needed support. Over the porch is a parvise chamber, now disused; it may in early days have served to accommodate musicians, or as a place of sanctuary for criminals fleeing from justice. During the eighteenth century the Galilee narrowly escaped demolition; for Essex, who was architect to the Chapter of Ely, advised that it should be pulled down as being of no use, and in a condition too ruinous to admit of repair. Happily his counsel was rejected, and the Galilee still stands to gladden our eyes with its beauty. From the Galilee we step into the nave. To attempt any description of the view before us would be futile; when we say that we are "uplifted" by it we have expressed in one word all that we dare to formulate. By moonlight, when the minster is empty; or on some day of Choral Festival, when arch and pillar echo back the music, this wondrous fabric, hallowed and mellowed by time, says to us, with a voice almost audible, "Sursum corda!" "The place whereon thou standest is holy ground." The nave in which we are standing is wholly Norman in its architecture; its pillars, alternately clustered and cylindrical, support round arches; these again support the round-headed double arches of the triforium, and these yet again the triple lights of the clerestory windows, three tiers in all. The arches are somewhat stilted, starting with a straight line, and are rather higher than semi-circular. All this severe architecture of Norman type leads on, as it were, to the more delicate tracery and moulding of the Early English lancet lights of the east window.