The Cloister, which was added in the fifteenth century, is of a peculiarly irregular shape, and encloses the south transept within the paradise. It has been much restored at different times. The present roof is of tiles, and is carried on common rafters. Each has a cross-tie, and the struts are shaped so as to give a pointed, arched form to each one. The old fifteenth-century wooden cornice still remains in some sections. The walling was once all plastered. The tracery is divided into four compartments by mullions, and each head is filled with cusped work.
Round the cloister are placed the old houses of the Treasurer, the Royal Chaplains, and Wiccamical Prebendaries. Above the door leading to the house of the Royal Chaplains is an interesting monument of the Tudor period. It is a panel divided into two compartments by a moulded stone framework.
Leading out of the south walk is a doorway, through which the deanery may be seen beyond the end of a long walled passage known as S. Richard's Walk. Looking back northwards, there is a fine view of the spire and transept from the end of this walk.
The chamber over the present singing school between the south arm of the transept and the west walk of the cloister shows the effect produced by some changes made during the fifteenth century. The masonry was more carefully finished than that of the adjoining transept—a specimen of twelfth-century work. The joints in the later work are thinner, and the average size of the stones is in this case smaller.
On the south side of the wall of this chamber are two buttresses. Close under the shallow moulded coping at the top of the wall are two fifteenth-century windows. They are not placed centrally over the others below. In design they are each divided into three lights by mullions. On the east side of the middle buttress is an old rain-water head of (eighteenth-century?) leadwork. Part of the lead piping still remains, having the old ears to fasten it to the walls. The west side of this chamber has one buttress on the south angle and a window in the centre of the wall. Above it is the low slope of a gable. The window is similar to those on the south side, but the head is a pointed and four-centred arch. The mullions have been restored. Below the part just described
is the earlier work of the thirteenth century. It rises as far up as to the string-course formed by the continuation of the abaci of the capitals in the two small single-light windows. These narrow and sharp-pointed windows are peculiar. The arch-moulds are different from the other work of the same date in the church. There is no sign of tracery in their design, and the jambs have a simple attached shaft in the outer reveal. The bases to these shafts are earlier than those of the shafts to the south aisle chapel windows, and the edge of the inner member of the window arch is merely cut off with a straight chamber. There is one window, the same as these, hidden in the west walk of the cloister. Beneath the windows just described there are two small single-light openings in each
portion of walling on either side of the central buttress. These six windows serve to light the vaulted (sacristy) choir school within.