Having now taken a cursory glance round the church, we will go once more over the same ground, examining it more in detail. We will suppose that the outer doors of the West Porch are open, and we can pass through them from the street. We go up from the level of the pavement three steps and find ourselves within the porch; on the south and north sides of it, doors open into two rooms used the one as the lecture-room of the Scholae Episcopi (or non-residential Theological College of the Diocese), the other as a schoolroom for the choir boys. A flight of eleven steps takes us up to a landing measuring about five feet from west to east, and then four more steps bring us to the level of the nave floor, and we enter through what were originally the west doors of the church, into the space below the tower. The ceiling of this is of fan tracery, and its side walls are panelled in five tiers. Passing under the tower arch and looking back, we notice that the tower arch with the walls on either side of it are original. The Baptistery is a modern addition. The font formerly stood in the outer aisle on the north side. The South Porch is also new. It is divided into two bays, each covered with a vault formed of eight ribs crossing each other at the centre, and decorated by two lierne ribs in each of the four quarters. The arcade dividing the outer from the inner aisle on the south side is entirely modern; the chapels which occupied the site of the outer aisle were formerly divided from each other by stone walls, and from the aisle by irregular arches filled with oak screens. All these were removed in 1815, so as to throw the area of the chapels into that of the church; an arcade was then built, but this was removed to make room for the present arcade during the restoration that was begun in 1872. The westernmost chantry, or Chapel of St. George, was founded by W. Galley in 1508. The next, the chapel of St. Nicholas, or the Trafford Chantry, is said to have been founded long ere the present church was built in 1186 by Robert de Greslet; at the south-east corner of this a piscina may be seen, though the altar has disappeared. Three steps and a screen divide this chantry from
the larger Jesus Chapel. This is separated from the south aisle by a beautiful wooden screen of sixteenth century date. This is glazed in order to make the room now used as a library comfortable. This chantry was founded in 1506.
Between the Jesus Chapel and the entrance to the chapter house on the south wall of the aisle are memorial tablets to Richard Heyrick, warden, who died in 1667, and Thomas Ogden, who died in 1763. The entrance to the Chapter House is a very beautiful piece of work. There are two doorways whose heads are four centred arches; above these there are two tiers of panel work, all being enclosed by one large arch whose sides and top are decorated by six tiers of panelling on each side (see illustration, p. [32]). The chapter house is very comfortably fitted up. There are to be seen in it several fragments of brasses and of other old work taken from the floor of the choir and of the Lady Chapel and elsewhere.
The Fraser Chapel contains an altar cenotaph in memory of the second Bishop of Manchester, who died October 22nd, 1885, at Bishop's Court, Higher Broughton, Manchester, but who was buried, not in his cathedral church, but in the churchyard of Ufton Nervet in Berkshire, a parish of which he had once been rector. The recumbent statue is considered to be a fine likeness of the late bishop. This statue was unveiled on July 8th, 1887.
The tomb bears the following inscription written by the late Dr Vaughan, Dean of Llandaff.
"To the beloved memory of James Fraser, D.D., Bishop of Manchester, 1870-85, a man of singular gifts both of nature and the spirit; brave, true, devout, diligent, in labours unwearied. He won all hearts by opening to them his own, and so administered this great Diocese as to prove yet once more that the people know the voice of a good shepherd and will follow where he leads."