=The East End=, now one of the most characteristic features of the cathedral, is the work of Sir G. Gilbert Scott, and is supposed to be a reproduction of the original twelfth century design: for enough fragments of the old work were said to remain on the walls to leave no doubt as to its original plan. Of course the detail has the usual machine-made look of modern carving; but it is something to have recovered the original effect, especially as the Decorated window which it has replaced had been spoilt in the seventeenth century, when it was altered from its original five lights to three. The design, says Mr. J.H. Parker, is very rare in England, and not common anywhere. It consists of a large wheel-window, with an intersecting arcade under it, and _two_ round-headed windows below: the wheel-window is set in a large round arch that seems to rest on two stout pillars. This round window is an imitation of an old one in Canterbury Cathedral. The arcade has a truer and less mechanical look than most of the restored work. The whole effect of the East End is excellent; dignified and varied, it has something of that refined homeliness which is so strong a characteristic of the cathedral. The stained glass in the windows by Clayton and Bell is not at all unpleasing when seen from a distance. It is in character with the stone-work, and only just fails to be really fine in colour. Dr. Liddon and Sir John Mowbray were the donors of the glass. It was formerly thought that the Norman presbytery was part of the original choir, and therefore presumably the earliest portion of the church; but Mr. Harrison gives the following technical reasons for holding that it was an addition to an older building with an apse, built by Ethelred:-- 1. The arches of the two side windows cut through string courses which run eastwards on both sides of the presbytery, being, in fact, continuations of the abaci proper of the half-capitals at that end of the choir. 2. If the east windows were designed from fragments of previously existing Norman ones, these cannot have been of the same date as the choir arches. The mouldings are later, and the old bases of the windows still in the east wall are clearly of transitional character, differing essentially from those belonging to corner shafts in the east aisles of the transepts. 3. The east walls of the choir aisles, which had been heightened to carry the vaulting, abut against and cover the jambs of the two side windows of the presbytery on the outside, a thing which could not have happened had the presbytery and choir aisles formed part of the same design.