between are subdivided by a small pillar supporting two semi-circular
arches. Part of the surrounding aisle collapsed in 1841, and the
Cambridge Camden Society (now defunct) employed the architect Salvin
to thoroughly restore the church. He took down a sort of battlemented
superstructure erected long after the Norman period, and built the
present conical roof.

After these early churches, the next in interest is Great St. Mary's,
the University Church, conspicuously placed in the market-place and in
the very centre of the town. It has not, however, always stood forth
in such distinguished isolation, for only as recently as the middle of
last century did the demolition take place of the domestic houses that
surrounded it. And inside, the alterations in recent times have been
quite as drastic, robbing the church of all the curious and remarkable
characteristics it boasted until well past the middle of the
nineteenth century, and reducing the whole interior to the stereotyped
features of an average parish church.

If we enter the building to-day without any knowledge of its past, we
merely note a spacious late Perpendicular nave, having galleries in
the aisles with fine dark eighteenth-century panelled fronts, and more
woodwork of this plain and solemn character in front of the organ, in
the aisle chapels, and elsewhere. A soft greenish light from the
clerestory windows (by Powell), with their rows of painted saints,
falls upon the stonework of the arcades and the wealth of dark oak,
but nothing strikes us as unusual until we discover that the pulpit is
on rails, making it possible to draw it from the north side to a
central position beneath the chancel arch. This concession to
tradition is explained when we discover the state of the church before
1863, when Dr. Luard, who was then vicar, raised an agitation, before