Let us now enter the Choir, and, ascending the gallery to the side of the organ, gaze on the impressive and characteristic work before us, which seems scarcely less fresh and solid than when Rahere beheld in its vast piers and beautiful arches the realization of the vision for which he had so long yearned. We are standing in the centre of four arches of the most magnificent span, fit bearers of the great tower that they lifted so airily, as it were a thing of nought, into the air. Two of these are round and two slightly pointed. The last (which were originally open and formed the commencement of the transepts) have been referred to as among the various instances of the occasional use of pointed arches by the Normans before their systematic introduction as a style. In each of the spandrels formed by these arches is a small lozenge-shaped panel containing ornaments which bear a striking resemblance to the Grecian honeysuckle, and deserve notice from their singularity. Behind us are arches showing the original continuation of the church into the nave. The roof is very ancient, and not particularly handsome looking. It consists of massy timbers, some of them braced up in the middle, apparently to prevent their falling. Prior Bolton’s elegant oriel window in the second story appears to have been built as a kind of pew or seat, from which the Prior could overlook the canons when he pleased, without their being aware of his presence, as it communicated with his house at the eastern extremity of the church. The piers which support the range of pointed arches forming the uppermost story are pierced longitudinally, so as to leave open a passage all round the upper part of the building. The dimensions of the church are stated somewhat differently by different writers, and we have no means of reconciling the discrepancy. According to Malcolm, the height is about forty feet, the breadth sixty feet, and the length one hundred and thirty-eight feet; to which if we add eighty-seven feet for the length of the nave, we have two hundred and twenty-five feet as the entire length of the Priory church within the walls. Osborne, in his _English Architecture_, gives the height as forty-seven feet, the breadth fifty-seven feet, and the length of the present church one hundred and thirty-two feet. We may here observe that when the fire broke out in 1830, the interior of the church was much injured, and the entire pile had a narrow escape from destruction.