We have mentioned above the existence of two churches at Jarrow, and have observed that there exists written corroboration of this. The smaller church which stood to the east is the chancel of the present building. Twenty-eight feet to the west of it was the termination of the nave or main block of the western church, built precisely on the quite mathematical lines of the elder fabric at Monkwearmouth. We may presume of this building what we know to have been the case at St. Peter’s, that there was a porch behind the altar, a building, that is to say, with three walls and one open side. Such a building still exists in the chancel of the Saxon church at Escomb, near Bishop Auckland. Assuming that the porch at Jarrow was like that at Escomb, square, and of proportionately larger dimensions, there would be a space of some thirteen feet intervening between it and the eastern church. It was here that the Norman builders would be disposed to erect their tower, and here the tower was accordingly built, not foursquare after the Norman model, but in an oblong form. The site occupies a rectangle of thirteen by twenty-one feet. The lower stages of this structure are essentially massive and very distinctly Norman in character. The highest storey, on the other hand, less well executed as some think, has its own ornateness; it was probably erected in the succeeding generation. If so, we understand the better the set-back of its northern and southern sides; the architect employed had, no doubt, his own opinion to the effect that the tower ought to have been square. [Illustration: EARLY ENGLISH SNAKES, MONKWEARMOUTH CHURCH.] The principle adopted by Bishop Walcher’s monks appears to have been that of reverent adaptation to immediate needs. They wished to repair and to add, but not to destroy. Had their stay at their new home been prolonged, the case would in time have been altered. Large medieval buildings would have taken the place of the more primitive original structures. But their sojourn at Jarrow lasted for only eight years. In the year 1083 Bishop William of St. Carileph transferred them to his cathedral. The extruded canons were placed at Auckland and Darlington, and the Evesham Benedictines occupied the mother-church of the diocese.