“Yes, it is the same nave, only colder and whiter, on which Anselm, the saintly archbishop, and Rufus gazed; the same avenue of massy pillars--then scarcely finished--through which Maud the Empress often went to her prayers with her chivalrous half-brother, Earl Robert. Beauclerc, her father, too, and some grey-haired survivors of Hastings must have looked on these huge columns crowned with their round arches which excite our wonder to-day. They were a curious fancy of the architect of Serlo; or was it not probably a design of a yet older artist of Edward the Confessor? These enormous round shafts, which are the peculiar feature of the nave of our storied abbey, have only once been repeated, probably by the same architect, in the neighbouring abbey of Tewkesbury, a few years later. There is nothing like them on either side of the silver streak of sea. The Tewkesbury copies are slightly smaller; otherwise they are exact reproductions of Gloucester.”--(S.) The Nave differs from other Norman naves like those of Peterborough, Ely and Norwich. “The unique features here are the great height of the massive circular columns, fourteen in number, and the consequently dwarfed triforium or gallery running over the main arches. There are traces to be seen of the original Norman clerestory under the Perpendicular windows, and, judging from this, the height of the clerestory, as originally constructed, must have been but little less than that of the piers in the nave. “This Norman clerestory was altered at the same time that the roof of the nave was vaulted--viz. in 1242, in the time of Henry Foliot. This work was done by the monks themselves, who thought, as Professor Willis suggests, that they could do it better than common workmen. Their work is made of a light and porous kind of stone, treated with plaster on the under-side, and it was rendered necessary by the previous roof, which was of wood, having been destroyed by fire in 1190. Of this fire the piers certainly show the traces to this day, all having become reddened and slightly calcined. To make the new clerestory the whole of the original Norman work over the arcade of the triforium was removed, with the exception of the jambs of the side-lights (which extended beyond the arches of the triforium) and the wall between them.”--(H. J. L. J. M.) All the stone-work was originally painted.