This venture of faith was triumphantly rewarded by the discovery in 1887 of the foundations of three apses, corresponding with these two arches, and with a third between them, of which traces were found shortly after. The first excavation in the canon's garden took the form of a trench outside the southern arch, and led to the discovery of part of the foundation of an apse, which measured a quarter-circle. The rest of this foundation had been destroyed, evidently when the wall of the Norman presbytery was built (which, it is notable, is quite twelve inches thicker than the wall containing the arches); but it was evident that the archway in the wall must have stood in the centre of a perfect apse. Similar foundations were next laid bare opposite the northern arch. Then the earth was removed opposite the Norman pilaster buttress, which, standing midway between the two arches, led the investigators to suppose that it hid a centre Saxon archway. Nothing was found at first but a small piece of concrete walling (2 feet by 1-1/2 feet) which it was at once seen might prove to be part of the north wall of the chancel of the ancient church, if a centre apse could be proved to have projected beyond the two side apses. Excavations were therefore commenced further east, with the result that the foundations of the central apse were discovered under a drive in the garden. The missing portion of this apse was accounted for by a main drain which had been cut across its inner side, and by a pit which had been made for the interment of bones found elsewhere in the Close. About the same time Mr. A.J. Evans, the Keeper of the Ashmolean Museum, found rag-stones by the side of the Norman buttress, which proved to be part of the central archway, a little wider and higher than the two side ones. It now became clear that this archway was really not a doorway at all but a small chancel-arch, the three arches being similar to those still used in the conservative churches of the East. It is a foot wider than the chancel-arch of the Saxon church at Bradford, Wilts, and two feet wider than the arch between the tower and chancel of Wotten Wawen church in Warwickshire, the jambs and arches of which were also built of rag-stone. Further evidence of the antiquity of this east wall is the fact that the sill of the south archway was found to be 2 feet 8 inches below the level of the pavement of the Norman church, as is shown in the elevation.
This Eastern plan of three apses was adopted about the same early period at Melbourne and Lindisfarn; and, as it was not long before the death of the great Archbishop Theodore that this arrangement came in, there is a great probability that he introduced it from his native country of Syria, where the churches were always constructed with three apses. The absence of any marks of juncture upon the exterior of the walls also inclines one to suspect that there was a passage from apse to apse behind the wall, as there always is in Eastern churches. The whole arrangement will be made abundantly clear from the above conjectural ground-plan of the ancient church, c. 740.
There are indications that these three apses are not of precisely the same date, for the northernmost arch is the smallest of the three, and the apse is correspondingly smaller. It is therefore surmised that the southernmost apse belonged to the church of Didan, the father of St. Frideswide, and dedicated to the Holy and Undivided Trinity, "without any more title and addition," while the other apses were the additions of Frideswide herself, when the church was adapted to the purposes of a convent, with the additional dedication to St. Mary and All Saints. This may be the reason why the chapel in a line with the central apse, and therefore on the site of the ancient nave, is still the Lady Chapel.
Another important point rests upon the document which states that, when Ethelred II. enlarged and repaired the old building, the result was that the tomb of St. Frideswide, which before was on the south side of the church, thereupon stood in the middle. The tomb of St. Frideswide must therefore have been in the southernmost of these three apses (in a "chapel," as Wood says, on the south side of the convent church), and not, as some people have supposed, in the vault discovered under the tower during Scott's restoration. A significant corroboration of the old document is supplied by the fact that the Norman plinth, which was carried across the other two archways, breaks off at the arch which leads into the south apse. It would thus seem that access was, after the Norman restoration, still afforded into this chapel, and that St. Frideswide's relics remained there until the Translation of 1180, when they were moved "from an obscure to a more noted place in the church" on the completion of the Norman restoration.
After the investigations had been completed, the earth was laid down again, but stones have been set in the drive to mark the site of the old foundations. Some charcoal and reddened stone which was found—evidently a relic of the fire of 1002—is now to be seen in the gallery over the vestry in the cathedral. In addition to this, the remains of a rough pavement were exposed in the north apse, and some square stones in the chord of the central apse, which seem to be part of the old altar. In addition to the numerous scattered bones that the workmen unearthed, two complete skeletons were found in the southern apse, and underneath the stone slabs upon which they lay another skeleton, that of a woman or a man of short stature, possibly that of Didan himself, or his wife Saffrida, who are both known to have been buried in the church.
The Cloister now forms only three sides of a square, the western part having been destroyed by Wolsey in order to make room for the hall staircase. Considerably inferior to those of Magdalen and New College, it is small and unpretentious: its tracery, of a humdrum Perpendicular type (mostly restored), and its vaulting, which is peculiar, point to the latter half of the fifteenth century as the time of its erection. Of the earlier cloister no trace remains, except the door and windows of the chapter-house. The north walk was converted into a muniment room, much to the defacement, one may imagine, of this part of the college; but it has now been restored, and a good imitation of the fine old lierne groined roof inserted, though funds have not been provided to finish the carving of the bosses. Mr. R.J. King points out that the panelling of the sides of the windows agrees very closely, even to the character of the cusps, with that introduced into the clerestory of the choir. The quadrangle of the cloister was the scene of Cranmer's degradation. In its area are the foundations of the lavatory, which was built about 1490.
Above the arches of the cloister runs a story with latticed windows on the east and south side, which adds considerably to the picturesqueness of the whole. Indeed, as one stands on the steps leading to the hall, the ivy-grown cloister, in spite of its modest proportions, has a beauty of its own. The latticed windows give it an air of mystery, as if strange old rooms were concealed by them; and in fact on the south side there is a curious library of time-worn theological books, which is seldom entered, and hardly ever used: it belongs to the Regius Professor of Divinity. The windows on the east side hide nothing more romantic than a small lumber-room, cut up by the raising of the wooden roof beneath, and an undergraduate's bed-chamber.
From the same position at the west of the cloister one can enjoy the best view of the tower and spire of the church. One is close enough to see all the detail, and yet from this angle nothing is lost of the general effect. On a moonlit evening the effect is particularly solemn and beautiful. From this point also should be noticed the difference in the masonry of the south transept. The lower story is entirely of rubble, while the upper story is partly of good ashlar work.