Note 136 — HISTORY OF THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF WELLS. (continued 2)

The Early English fragments which have been built up in the chapel in the Vicars' Close, as well as those which are lying about in the undercroft of the chapter-house, can hardly fail to belong to the destroyed east end. Yet the fragments in the Vicars' chapel agree rather with the style of the west front than with that of the other parts of the church; and they agree with the fragments built into the rectory-house at Wookey (now called, without any reason, Mellifont Abbey), which can hardly fail to have been parts of Jocelin's house there. The fragments in the undercroft have the tooth-moulding, which, I think, is not found anywhere else in the church, though it is in the undercroft of the chapter-house.

As for the actual form of the east end, it is plain that it was not an apse, nor yet a square east end of the full height, like York, Ely, and Southwell. It will be seen on the ground-plan that the aisles of Jocelin's work run a bay to the east of the site of his high altar. This shows that there was a procession-path and most likely a chapel beyond it on the site of the present presbytery, though it is possible that it ended in a mere retrochoir, like that at Abbey Dore, or that carried round the northern apse at Peterborough.