The cathedral stands well within the old city, a good quarter of a mile from the Severn. One rose on this site before the Norman Conquest, but that was destroyed by fire--the crypt beneath the choir being the only relic--and another building was erected in the last dozen years of the eleventh century. Notwithstanding great and conspicuous alterations, the shell of this structure is comparatively intact. The nave has undergone the least change, and is a very fine example of the earlier work in that style. It resembles Tewkesbury in the increased height of the piers and consequent dwarfing of the triforium, thus differing from, and not improving on, the great Norman cathedrals of Eastern England; the choir is also of the same age, though the older work is often almost concealed beneath a veil of Perpendicular tracery; and the east window, of the latter date, is the largest in England. The roof also is a magnificent piece of vaulting. In fact, all the eastern part, including the transept, was remodelled between the years 1337 and 1377, but the roof of the nave had been already replaced nearly a century earlier than the former date. The latest conspicuous changes in the cathedral were the additions of the grand Lady Chapel and of the central tower. The former was grafted on to its little Norman predecessor in the last forty years of the fifteenth century, and its great Perpendicular east window still preserves the stained glass with which it was filled on the completion of the structure. The east window of the choir also contains the original glass, which is a yet finer specimen of the art, and is older by nearly a hundred and fifty years. The central tower was begun at the same time, but was not completed till some thirty years later. It has few rivals in Britain; some prefer that in the same position at Lincoln, others Bell Harry Tower at Canterbury. Gloucester, at any rate, is the most ornate, even if it be not the most beautiful. [Illustration: _Photo: H. W. Watson, Gloucester._ GLOUCESTER.] [Illustration: _Photo: Hudson._ THE SEVERN BRIDGE, SHARPNESS (_p 123_).]