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Behind these mullions is the customary triforium passage; but the design really consists only of two parts, the clerestory and the main arches. It is as if the lower part of the light of the clerestory windows were divided from the rest by a transom, and pierced, but not glazed, so as to let in light to the passage behind them.
From one of the streets leading out of the Place Royale you can see the cathedral, and as you come nearer you see that it is clear enough of houses or such like things; the great apse rises over you, with its belt of eastern chapels; first the long slim windows of these chapels, which are each of them little apses, the Lady Chapel projecting a good way beyond the rest, and then, running under the cornice of the chapels and outer aisles all round the church, a cornice of great noble leaves; then the parapets in changing flamboyant patterns, then the conical roofs of the chapels hiding the exterior tracery of the triforium, then the great clerestory windows, very long, of four lights, and stilted, the tracery beginning a long way below the springing of their arches; and the buttresses are so thick, and their arms spread so here, that each of the clerestory windows looks down its own space between them, as if between walls: above the windows rise their canopies running through the parapet, and above all the great mountainous roof, and all below it, and around the windows and walls of the choir and apse, stand the mighty army of the buttresses, holding up the weight of the stone roof within with their strong arms for ever.
There is some stained glass in the apse, but in the other windows, including those in the clerestory, Venetian shutters take the place of glass, as in all the European houses. There are thirty-two punkahs, and the Indians who worked them, anyone of whom might have been the model of the Mercury of the Naples Museum, sat or squatted outside the church.
But the respective level of these essential members were so different in the old and new works that the only parts of them that could be retained were the windows of the old clerestory, which falls just above the new triforium tablet, and accordingly these old windows may still be seen in the triforia of the transepts, surmounted by the new pointed clerestory windows.
Two clerestory windows at the east end of the choir, adjoining the larger window, have been recently filled with stained glass in much better taste. The objections above made may be urged with equal force against the east and west windows of the south aisle of the body of the fane, and the west window of the north aisle.
These shafts formed the support to a more delicate moulded member, which was now substituted for the original and very simple outer order of the original arch. A string-course of Purbeck marble was inserted as a line of separation between the nave arcade and the triforium, and also between the triforium and clerestory.
At the west end there is a large window of seven lights, with three transoms. The gable contains a window of very curious shape, filled with intricate tracery. The space above the aisle windows is ornamented with quatrefoiled squares, and the clerestory is pierced by windows of three lights.
Next to this in order came the walls of the aisles of the nave, and the cloisters and chapter-house, which, however, have disappeared; cloisters would come to be considered a necessity as soon as the secular canons were superseded by regulars. The early English clerestory of the nave seems to have been built in the time of the third prior, Peter, about the beginning of the thirteenth century.
The church to which this most stately tower is attached is not of any great interest, beyond a simple Romanesque doorway and window in the west front, and some very plain arches to match in the transepts. The choir is rather poor late Gothic, spoiled by a great blank space between arcade and clerestory. Of the nave we hardly know what to say.
The first has a church with cresting of fleurs-de-lis on a hipped and tiled roof, two gable crosses, flanking pinnacles, an arcaded clerestory, and a double door with ornamental hinges, on each side of which is a quatrefoil opening. The second seal shows an arcaded building standing on a stone plinth of four courses, and flanked by towers with conical roofs and ball finials.
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