It stood till 1379 with a low and short Norman nave
and transept to the west, and a great Transitional choir and transept
to the east. In 1379 Lanfranc's nave and transept were destroyed.
It may be thought that at last a great and noble nave would be built
north of the Frenchman's choir. Not at all. Again the English prejudice
against destruction--a lack of intellectual daring in us perhaps--
prevented this. One of the western towers of Lanfranc was to remain,
and therefore the new nave though loftier than the old, was no longer,
and it remains a glory certainly without, but within a hopeless
disappointment saved from utter ineffectiveness only by the noble
height of the great choir above it. It remains without life or zest,
not an experiment but a task honestly and thoroughly done in the
Perpendicular style.
To the same period belong the great western screen of the choir, the
Chapel of St Michael and the Warrior's Chapel in the south transept,
the Lady Chapel in the north transept, the Chantry and the tomb of
Henry IV. in the Trinity Chapel, the Black Prince's Chantry and the
screens of the Lady Chapel in the Crypt, the upper part of the Chapter
House, now lost to us by restoration, and the south-west Tower.
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