A thirteenth century stone slab now rests in the chapter-house; it was brought here from Rewly Abbey, where it covered the tomb of Ela, wife of Thomas de Newburgh, Earl of Warwick, and daughter of William Longspée. In the east wall is preserved the foundation stone of Wolsey's College at Ipswich, the inscription on which runs,—"Anno Christi 1528, et regni Henrici octavi, regis Angliae 20, mensis vero Junii 15, positum per Johannem epm. Lidensem,"—John Holt being titular Bishop of Lydda, and probably a suffragan of Lincoln. The stone has no connection with Christ Church, beyond the fact that it commemorates another benefaction of Wolsey, and was presented to the House in 1789.
A small staircase in the south wall leads up into the charming oak-panelled room, which is used by the chapter for meetings. In the window of the staircase will be noticed some initial letters and other devices in stained glass which are among the very finest of their kind. In the upper room itself, which looks pleasantly on to a garden, are some interesting pictures:—one of Henry VII.; another of the same king, younger, with his queen; Henry VIII.; Elizabeth; Mary; Samuel Fell, the father of Bishop Fell, and Dean of Christ Church himself; Busby, the terrible headmaster of Westminster School, also connected with this House; two portraits of the talented Dean Aldrich, and one of Peter Martyr, whose wife was so strangely made to share the grave with St. Frideswide. Peter Martyr had been himself an Augustinian prior: he adopted strong reforming views, and was made Regius Professor of Divinity here in 1549. He lived near Tom Gate; but the undergraduates broke his windows, and he moved to the cloister, where he fortified his garden. According to Blunt, he gave up the professorship when the undergraduates annoyed him, but returned on being made a canon. In this chapter-room there is a good Elizabethan table, a curious old iron safe, and some Chippendale chairs.
A gateway in the cloister to the north of the chapter-house leads into the slype, which occupies the position usual in monastic buildings between the chapter-house and the transept. In this case the slype is a plain barrel-vaulted passage that takes up part of the transept itself, and forms the lower story of the choir-vestry (as it now is) within the church. It leads into the old cemetery, whence a good view is obtained of St. Lucy's chapel, the east end, and the chapter-house. In the garden are the tombs of Philip Pusey, son of Dr. Pusey, and Edith Liddell, who is commemorated in St. Catherine's window. The round-headed doorway, now blocked up, should also be noticed: it may be one of the doorways of Ethelred's church, and is in any case the only ancient one left.
The east end was restored in 1871 by Gilbert Scott, in accordance with the late Norman design, of which fragments, left when the Decorated window was inserted, still remained in the wall; but how far exactly it follows the original no one appears to know.
An elaborate wheel-window occupies the upper part of the chancel gable; above it is a blind arcade of transitional pointed arches, and below are two round-headed windows. The square turrets at the angles are ornamented with arcading in three stories: the upper is on a level with the pointed arcading of the main wall, and similar in style; the middle carries on the line of the wheel-window, and consists of two round arches on each turret; the lower, on a level with the two round-headed windows, is made up of three round arches, which, by intersecting, form four pointed arches. The whole, in spite of its being (with the exception of the turrets) a restoration, gives one a good idea of transitional work on a large scale. In plan it is still Romanesque, in detail it is Early Gothic.
The Bell Tower, which stands above the hall-staircase, is really only a stone case built by Mr. Bodley to hide the wooden structure which actually contains the bells. The tower, as it now stands, is incomplete, Mr. Bodley having intended a lofty and intricate wooden superstructure to rest upon it. The authorities, however, were afraid of its dwarfing the spire and Tom Tower, and consequently left the structure in its present state, much against the opinion, as we understand, of the architect, whose completed design can be seen in the common-room, and is so magnificently picturesque, that one cannot help hoping that the authorities will see their way to erecting it. After all, if every one in the past had been afraid of overtopping the cathedral, Oxford would never have become the "Sweet city of her dreaming spires" that we know The cathedral can hold its own, and so can Tom Tower; for neither makes any pretensions to loftiness. The original hall-tower seems to have stood on the same spot before the space was cleared for the erection of Dean Fell's staircase.