[52] The buttresses of this east wall were formerly connected at the bottom by a debased battlemented wall, and the space within was used for sheds, the grooves for whose pent roofs can be seen on the sides of the buttresses.
[53] The arch springs from the buttress (as an excavation in 1900 showed), and may perhaps be a relieving-arch, to take the weight off a weak place in the foundations. Yet it was not intended, apparently, to be filled up. The stones forming the right edge of the hole are coigns, and have mason-marks on their sides. At the back of the hole the masonry appears to be of some antiquity: may it be part of the foundation of the east end of Archbishop Roger’s choir?
[54] There are several prints of the Cathedral, as it was before restoration, in the Ripon Museum.
CONJECTURAL VIEW OF INTERIOR OF ARCHBISHOP ROGER’S NAVE BY SIR G. G. SCOTT.
(By the kind permission of the Archæological Institute.)