Chapter III: TRANSITIONAL.—Then, c. 1186, following the precedent of Romsey,

the three Norman apses were pulled down in order to provide (1) a processional aisle, of four bays, connecting together the side-aisles of the Norman choir; (2) a double chapel, a prolongation of the Norman eastern chapel. The new processional aisle had probably two eastern chapels, two to the north, two to the south. The processional aisle with the double chapel was altogether six bays in length, and therefore formed an eastern transept—one of the earliest eastern transepts in England. The side walls of the old Norman eastern chapel were pierced with windows, unglazed, to improve the lighting of the new aisle-chapel on either side. In the jambs of these windows are shafts with conventional stalky foliage; while the arch of the window-head is enriched with the Norman diamond ornament. The vaulting-ribs are enriched with zigzag. The central piers have, one conventional foliage, the other a scalloped capital. In the south-east transept there are remains of the doorway, and a plinth which seems to have supported a pier between the two eastern chapels. Some five or six years later a similar processional aisle with five eastern chapels was built at Abbey Dore, where, however, it does not form an eastern transept. The piers of the processional aisle are so arranged that two of them are in a line with the centre of the semicircular arch which led from the choir into the former Norman central apse. The intention of the builder evidently was to reconstruct the east end of the choir, or perhaps to rebuild the whole choir, substituting for the single semicircular arch a pair of pointed arches, as at Exeter. This was never done, however; and so, quite fortuitously, Hereford gets the most charming vistas from the choir across to the eastern transept and the Lady chapel.