Symeon, a monk of Durham, already mentioned, lived when a great part of the work at the church was going on, and therefore his testimony is very important. He wrote a history of the church of Durham, and his history was continued after him by an anonymous writer. We next have a further continuation by Geoffrey de Coldingham, Robert de Graystanes, and William de Chambre, together with a number of indulgences from various Bishops, given towards obtaining means for making additions to and alterations in the building, and a few, but late, fabric rolls. Besides these there is a most important document, "A Description or Brief Declaration of all the Ancient Monuments, Rites, and Customs belonging or being within the Monastical Church of Durham before the Suppression," apparently written towards the end of the sixteenth century by someone who had been an inmate of the monastery. These form the series of historical evidences which now exist with regard to the dates of the various parts of the church. In 1093, on August 11, the foundation-stones of the new church were laid, the foundations themselves having been dug on the preceding July 29. Aldhun’s church, as Symeon tells us, had been previously destroyed. There were then present Bishop William of St. Carileph; Turgot, Prior of the monastery, afterwards Bishop at St. Andrews; and, as other writers say, Malcolm, King of Scotland. The continuator of Symeon says that, on the accession of Flambard, he found the church finished as far as the nave. This statement does not, of course, imply that the whole of this was the work of Carileph, for the monks after his death had carried on the building of the church; but it appears on the whole probable that, with the exception of the west side of the transepts and the vaulting of the choir, all the church up to the point mentioned had been built before the death of Carileph.