Bell's Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield

Norman work in the choir, with the ambulatory beyond it, and extending upwards to the arcading of the triforium. The eastern part of the clerestory is a modern reproduction of that which superseded Rahere's; but, with this exception, the interior of the choir was probably much the same originally as it is (restored) to-day.

There was, however, a central tower, and, if the design on the twelfth-century Priory seal is to be trusted, a high circular turret at each end of the exterior.[9]

Thomas of St. Osyth, the second Prior (d. 1174), erected the transepts and the easternmost bays of the nave, all of which bear signs of the architectural transition. The nave was probably completed during the next half-century, in the Early-English (then superseding the heavier Norman) style, as may be inferred from the surviving western gateway, and the mutilated columns which remain within the building at the western end.

[Illustration: THE NORTH SIDE OF THE CHOIR FROM THE TRIFORIUM E. Scamell. Photo.