At the ends of the hood-mouldings of the diagonally placed arches of the Octagon are carved eight heads. Edward the Third in his crown gazes with kingly bearing across the archway at his Queen, Philippa, who wears an expression of cheering benignity, well becoming a queen; Bishop Hotham looks his part, and Prior Crauden has the countenance of a saint and an enthusiast. On the north-western archway Alan of Walsingham, clean shaven, and his master mason, with flowing locks, face each other carved in the stone that they knew so well how to manipulate. The seventh and eighth heads are grotesque. Slightly higher than these portrait heads, supporting canopied niches, come the celebrated corbels on which are sculptured the leading events of the life of St. Etheldreda in the following order: I. She appears at her second marriage, as a most reluctant bride, forced into holding the bridegroom's hand. II. Having escaped from her husband, she takes the veil from St. Wilfrid. III. Her pilgrim's staff bears foliage and fruit. IV. Seated on a rock, the tide protects her from her husband's pursuit. V. She is enthroned as Abbess by St. Wilfrid. VI. Her death and burial. VII. A prisoner is miraculously released by her prayers. VIII. The first translation of her body. Just where the nave and the Octagon Tower join is a slab, which some hold to cover the grave of Alan of Walsingham. A well-worn stone is all we see, but we can trace on it a dimly embossed matrix, showing that once it held a brass of rich workmanship, since torn away. Whether this be his tomb or no, Alan has his monument here in the structure we behold above and around us, bearing witness to his life, which ended in 1364 when he had reached the age of seventy. On the brass which once marked his resting-place we know that there was engraved a lengthy epitaph in Latin verse, still extant, of which we offer an abridged translation as follows: "These things of note are at Ely, the Lantern, and Chapel of Mary, A windmill too, and a vineyard that yieldeth wine in abundance. Know that the Choir before you exceedeth all others in beauty, Made by Alan our brother, Alan the wise Master Builder; He who of craftsmen the flower, was gifted with strength in his lifetime. Alan the Prior, forget not, here facing the Choir lieth buried. He, for that older Tower which fell one night in the darkness, Here erected, well-founded, the Tower ye now are beholding. Many the Houses of God that, as Prior and Sacrist, he builded. May God grant him in Heaven a seat as the end of his labour." From this epitaph we may conclude that Alan of Walsingham had given Ely both a windmill and a vineyard; of these no trace exists (though we know that the mill stood on the summit of "Cherry Hill"); but "the Lantern and Chapel of Mary" and the western bays of the Choir, as built under him at Bishop Hotham's charge, remain for us to this day.