The base is decorated with a low parapet pierced with quatrefoils, four in the centre, and two in each side opening. On the south, however, the quatrefoil decoration is slightly different. There are only three quatrefoils in the centre and two smaller ones on each side. This parapet is in great part a restoration, the original having been almost entirely removed, in the vain hope of admitting more light to the lower part of the choir.
In the other plane the windows are in triplets, three lights in the central and single lights on either side, decorated with flamboyant tracery.
The eastern bay has no side lights.
Although the windows seem to be all different, there are but six varieties, distributed as follows:
On the north side beginning at the east the design of the first window is not repeated. That of the next window occurs in the second window on the south side. The third and fifth are alike. The sixth and the last are like the fourth. The design of the seventh window does not occur again.
On the south side one new pattern appears in three windows—the first, fourth, and sixth from the east. The second is like the window opposite, and the third, fifth, and seventh are like the third on the north side.
Of all the windows the second from the east is the most beautiful.
Before 1764 they were filled with stained glass of which some remains are still to be seen. The trefoil heads above the mullions have a brown border with the insertion in some cases of a yellow diamond ornament, and in others of a crown.
The Roof—This unique specimen of a waggon-headed ceiling, semi-circular in all its parts, is of oak. Bishop Welton began its construction about 1350. A plaster ceiling, put up in the year 1764, hid this fine timber roof until its removal in 1856. It was then found that enough remained of the original to allow a faithful restoration to be made. But the scheme of colouring—red and green upon white—was not copied. In its stead Owen Jones suggested another—a background of blue plentifully ornamented with golden stars.
The Saturday Review is responsible for the statement—for the truth of which, however, it does not vouch—"that on the first occasion when Dean Close found himself beneath the roof, then glowing in all the brilliancy of modern painting and gilding, in semblance of 'the spangled firmament on high,' he solemnly ejaculated, 'Oh my stars!'"