It seems almost paradoxical to say that the western arches as we see them are of more recent date than the tower which they support; yet this statement is true, for they were constructed in the fifteenth century to strengthen the steeple built more than two hundred years before. The more ancient masonry is for the most part completely hidden by the newer, but the tops of the original archways remain in full view to show how much they have been contracted by this encasing stonework. During the previous century six bells had been hung in the steeple; moreover, the eight-sided turret had been built on the top of it, and all this additional weight must inevitably have led to the fall of the whole, but for the strengthening and underpinning of the piers. [Illustration: _South Aisle of the Nave, Ely._] Over the westernmost archway is a modern window inserted by Bishop Yorke toward the close of the eighteenth century, noteworthy only for its Flemish glass. In the lower southern light we see St. John the Evangelist playing with a partridge, illustrative of the legend which relates how his disciples found him, as an aged man, thus engaged, and how, in answer to their expression of surprise at this unwonted relaxation, he remarked to them "A bow cannot be kept always strung." Strange to say, this story, which would seem specially fitted to call forth the painter's gifts, is almost unknown to art. Through the southern of these archways we step into the western transept, the Baptistery of the cathedral, where stands a font of modern date. Here to the east is the apsidal chapel known as St. Catharine's. All tracery and ornament around us is still strictly Norman in character, and zigzag moulding prevails; but we can see here how the round arched stone-work, as it intersects, forms graceful lancets, thus suggesting the pointed or two centred arch; and when once the architect's eye had caught its beauty, he refused to let his compass trace out the simpler one-centred arch of the Norman period, and Early English architecture came in with a rush. St. Catharine's Chapel is used daily by the students of the Ely Theological College, and a beautiful altar of alabaster and jasper, placed here in 1896, harmonises, in its character of dignity and permanence, with the Norman stonework around. The apse in which it stands is a modern restoration, having been for many years a ruin; indeed the whole of this western transept was for long cut off from the Tower by a wall of stud and plaster, and served as a workshop and lumber-room, where materials for use in the repairs of the Cathedral could be stored, till Dean Peacock set himself in 1842 to remedy this condition of things. It is now one of the most romantic corners of the Minster.