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That eastern portion is clearly planned for an apse or chancel of some kind. The arch that rises eastward from the last pillar is stopped half-way in its course by a cross-arch opening into the apse, and the two last groin-ribs are carried from the pillar to the abutments of the cross-arch, being obliged by this contraction of span to form the only pointed arches in the whole vaulting.
In each corner a detached shaft springs from a round corbel above the lowest string and rises to the impost of the arches, being banded twice on the way; and from its capital another shaft runs up to the ceiling. The doors to the spiral staircases open into little square lobbies which have vaults with groin-ribs springing from corbels. In the north tower is a modern stained window of some merit.
There are also wall-ribs, and these and the ridge-ribs are much thinner than the groin-ribs, and consist of a single roll only. Without the aisle the width is only 30 feet, but this is partly due to the Perpendicular alterations.
The original vaulting itself must of course have been taken down when the three westernmost columns of the choir-arcade were rebuilt, but in the reconstruction the old ribs seem to have been used again. The groin-ribs have no room to descend upon the Perpendicular choir-capitals, and end prematurely upon corbels carved into faces.
It should be noticed that toward the aisle the choir arches have one more order in the three Decorated bays than they have in the rest. In the Decorated vaulting several chamfers are introduced among the mouldings of the cross-springers, and both in these and in the groin-ribs the most prominent moulding has a fillet. Otherwise the roof roughly matches that of the older bays.
Its window indeed is of early Norman type: yet its wall seems of softer stone than the rest of the crypt, and the string which runs along the east wall of the latter and round the responds of the cross-arch is there broken off: moreover, the cross-arch itself is clearly not of the same date or construction with the two ribs of the apse-roof, which ribs may possibly be of the same date as the groin-ribs; and lastly, it will be remembered that the shafts on the exterior had something of the appearance of Archbishop Roger's work.
As the bays of this arcade, to which the vaulting is adapted, do not agree with those of the crypt, it follows that the two cylindrical pillars here do not stand exactly over the pillars below which strengthens the presumption that the vaulting there is of earlier date, and that its groin-ribs were added later for strength: nor does the dividing wall here stand exactly over the cross-wall below, so that the strain on the crypt roof must be considerable.
The older and the later period meet in the fourth bay from the west, where two of the groin-ribs have the fillet, while the other two are without it. In the two easternmost bays there are fine bosses at the crown of the vault. It is thought that the Shrine of St. Wilfrid was in the east end of this aisle.
The vaulting has wall-ribs, cross-springers, and groin-ribs, and is rather high-pitched. Upon the cross-springers the mouldings are a large keeled round having on either side a hollow between fillets, while the groin-ribs are moulded as in the Markenfield Chapel.
When, therefore, the vaulting here was rebuilt, it had to be adapted to the shortened space, and the groin-ribs, which are very much of Archbishop Roger's pattern, spring from Perpendicular corbels carved into faces.
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