182 The Bishop’s Palace at Salisbury. 
Bishop Poore’s design from what they now appear, for the detached 
columns supporting the inner arches in the centre have been inserted 
to give greater lightness to the general effect of the room; formerly 
each light of these western windows stood in a separate embrasure, 
the outer splays of the inner openings having been returned towards 
each other in the centre, thus forming a solid block of masonry 
between the two lights. The size and form of the lights themselves 
must be very nearly the same as in Bishop Poore’s design, und 
enough of the inner arches remained when the restoration was taken 
in hand to make it possible to reproduce them exactly. 
The single-light window in the north wall is probably entirely a 
modern innovation; it is true an embrasure occurred here, but it 
bore no signs of ancient work, and if it be the case that a building 
formerly projected from the north wall containing the larder on the 
ground-floor and the sewery above it is manifestly unlikely that any 
window would have occurred at the north end of the eastern aisle 
of the undercroft. 
The fireplace may also present another entirely new feature in the 
room; if one did formerly exist it must have occurred where the 
new one has been placed, but this portion of the wall has been so 
much cut about by various alterations that no traces of an ancient 
fireplace could have come down to us even if one had formed part of 
the original design. 
With regard to the date of the wall which now divides the under- 
croft into two parts, leaving two bays to the north and one to the 
south, it is difficult to speak with certainty, but there can be no 
question that it is an ancient erection, because an old doorway was 
found in this wall exactly at the spot where the new one now stands ; 
indeed the stop-chamfer at the bottom of the western jamb is 
original, and it moreover bears somewhat the appearance of belonging 
to thirteenth century work—that such walls were built across vaulted 
apartments in early days in exactly this manner there can be no 
doubt—; it may perhaps be said therefore that the evidence in 
favour of this wall having formed part of Bishop Poore’s work is 
rather stronger than the evidence against it. 
The walls of the existing drawing-room no doubt contain much 
