[Illustration:  BAY OF NAVE, NORTH SIDE.]

Then it is held by some that the axis of the old nave and chancel was in line with that of the present choir; but the south porch, built more than one hundred years before the new nave, is at right angles with it which would hardly have been the case had the two naves not been on the same lines.

Needless to say the old east end could scarcely have extended beyond the present nave, so that the new chancel was probably built without disturbing the old church.  The position of the older Lady Chapel supports this view, while its bearing towards the north, as already pointed out, indicates that the deflection of the new chancel is simply copied from the older one.

The position of the south porch proves also that the south aisle was as wide as the present one, while the fact that it was wider than the nave shows that it was almost certainly not designed at the same time.

The nave is of six bays and is 54 feet high at the centre, while each arch is 20 feet wide in the clear.  The piers are slender, but, owing to the depth of the panelling above the arches and the large size of the windows, the weight upon them is reduced to a minimum.  Shafts carried up from the ground support the roof brackets, and there are intermediate ones over the centre of each arch.  The clearstory windows of four lights each are in pairs, and the mullions are carried down to form panelling and finish on the backs of the arches, which recede in two sloping faces and form a somewhat unusual feature in the treatment of the wall surface.  The detail of the piers and arches is rather weak, even for Perpendicular work.

[Illustration:  INTERIOR FROM THE SOUTH DOOR.]

The chancel is about 93 feet long, and in height and width is 4 or 5 feet less than the corresponding nave measurements.  Its width further diminishes by about 3-1/2 feet in the length of the three bays.  The omission of a chancel arch is a step towards the ideal simplicity of the late Perpendicular churches (e.g., St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich), running from east to west without break, but the large rood piers and reduced width and height of chancel make the pause demanded in so long a church.  The step at this point is of oak, and is probably the original sill of the rood screen.  The large figures of SS.  Peter and Paul were placed on the piers in 1861.  Of the three arches which open on either hand the centre one is widest, having four-light windows, instead of three-light, over it.  The panelling beneath the clearstory is richer than that in the nave.  The five four-light windows of the apse are lofty and divided by two transoms, but the design is somewhat commonplace.  The glass of the middle three is a memorial to Queen Adelaide, dated 1853.  The other two are filled with fragments of the ancient stained glass of the church.

[Illustration:  THE CHOIR FROM ST. LAWRENCE’S CHAPEL.]