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The western face of this projects beyond the line joining the east walls of the two transepts; its eastern face rests against the eastern piers intended to support the central tower. It was extensively restored by Mr Ferrey in 1848, who considered that it may have been removed from some conventual church after the dissolution of the monasteries in the time of Henry VIII. and re-erected here.
Almost all the persons buried in the abbey were women, but one curious exception may be noted. In 1845 a coffin was discovered in the nave, under an enormous slab of stone, measuring 11 ft. 5 in. by 3 ft. 9 in. Mr. Ferrey, the architect, under whose supervision the restoration of the abbey was then being carried out, thus describes the discovery: "Great care was exercised in raising the stone.
The window in the western bay is the original Norman one; the others were altered either in Early English or Decorated times, and are now filled with modern tracery in the Decorated style designed by Mr Ferrey. In the third bay is a holy water stoop, and in the fifth a large aumbry or recess, entered by a door; in this used to be kept the bier and lights used at funerals.
On one of the walls Mr Ferrey, the architect, found a design for a window; this he copied, and used when designing the tracery of the window he inserted over the prior's door at the east end of the south aisle of the nave. This tracing chamber is lighted by a two-light window with a quatrefoil in the head in the eastern wall.
Here Mr Ferrey, the architect, by whom much of the restoration was carried out, discovered traces of an external chantry and the marks of an arcading corresponding to that still remaining on the inside.
Mr Ferrey was of opinion that it may have once stood across the nave between the second piers from the east, thus forming a reredos for the western part of the nave, which was used as the church of the parish. Below the presbytery is a Norman crypt, now converted into a vault for the Malmesbury family.
The internal appearance of the church about the middle of the nineteenth century was extremely distasteful to those affected by the Gothic revival, and drastic changes were made. "Restoration" was begun at first under the direction of Mr. Ferrey, who also restored Christchurch Priory.
Stephen's Church and Schools are handsome, in a decorated Gothic style, and were built in 1847 by Ferrey, at the cost of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. The spire rises to a height of 200 feet. Immediately opposite, two neat rows of almshouses, in red brick, face one another; on the exterior wall of each wing is the half-length effigy of a man in a niche.
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