instances, not be interpreted with certainty; while the absence of all
reference to some works of importance (the West Front, for example), is
very mysterious. Most of these documents had been studied in manuscript
by Gunton and Patrick, and the result of their studies was published in
1686. The work is entitled "The History of the church of Peterburgh ...
By Symon Gunton, late Prebendary of that church.... And set forth by
Symon Patrick, D.D., now Dean of the same." Gunton was Prebendary from
1646 to his death in 1676; Patrick was Dean from 1679 till his
consecration as Bishop of Chichester in 1689. Most of the documents in
question have since been printed. Two writers in the last half century
have published monographs on the cathedral, both of great value, both
treating the subject after Professor Willis's method. These are G.A.
Poole, formerly Vicar of Welford, whose paper on the Abbey Church of
Peterborough was published among the Transactions of the Architectural
Society of the Archdeaconry of Northampton in 1855, and the late
Professor F.A. Paley, a second edition of whose pamphlet, "Remarks on
the Architecture of Peterborough Cathedral," was issued in 1859. It by
no means detracts from the value of the method employed that the results
of the investigations of these two careful students of the fabric do not
accord with one another. Much must always be left to inference or
conjecture. Since they wrote many discoveries have been made which have
shewn some of their conclusions to have been inaccurate. But the rule
is a sound one, and indeed it is only by studying the documents and the
fabric together that one can hope to learn the history of any great
building.

Thus, when the chronicle records that Abbot Martin completed the
presbytery, and that then the monks entered into the new church, we
should naturally understand that he built no more than the existing
choir and its aisles. But there can be little doubt that his work