“The method of joining the Lady-chapel to the choir is best noticed from the outside. It is a piece of exceedingly clever and graceful construction, and there is the minimum of obstruction to the light passing through to the east window, and the maximum of support to the elliptical east window. Viewing the Lady-chapel from the north side, the play of light through the windows on the south side has a very grand effect. Under the east end of the Lady-chapel is a passage which has given rise to much speculation in bygone times. The Lady-chapel, at [Illustration: GLOUCESTER: EAST] [Illustration: GLOUCESTER: TOMB OF EDWARD II.] the time of its erection, was carried out to the farthest limit of the land possessed by the Abbey. As the east wall of the chapel was actually on the western boundary wall the passage was made to give access from the north to the south of the grounds, without the need of going right round the precincts by the west front.”--(H. J. L. J. M.) During the reign of Henry VIII., the Abbey which had “existed for more than eight centuries under different forms, in poverty and in wealth, in meanness and in magnificence, in misfortune and success, finally succumbed to the royal will. The day came, and that a drear winter day, when its last Mass was sung, its last censer waved, its last congregation bent in rapt and lowly adoration before the altar there; and, doubtless, as the last tones of that day’s evensong died away in the vaulted roof, there were not wanting those who lingered in the solemn stillness of the old massive pile, and who, as the lights disappeared one by one, felt that there was a void which could never be filled, because their old abbey, with its beautiful services, its frequent means of grace, its hospitality to strangers, and its loving care for God’s poor, had passed away like a morning dream, and was gone for ever.”--(W. H. H.) Gloucester has suffered from the hands of restorers. In 1847, Mr. F. S. Waller made extensive repairs. At this time the gardens were added. The exterior presents a great variety of battlements and pinnacles and another interesting feature in the exterior is the construction of the two passages which make up the greater part of the so-called Whispering Gallery. This connects the north and south triforium of the choir. The =West Front= of Gloucester, restored in 1874, is comparatively uninteresting. The buttresses of the great window are pieced, as are also the parapets. Plain transoms cross the lights of the great west window, the tracery of which is very elaborate when looked at from within. The old towers have disappeared.