Externally the east wall and buttresses were embellished with flint flushwork in emergent Perpendicular style, while the offsets of stone tracery in the window-arches of the north transept and Lady chapel indicate curvilinear designs now lost. The piers of the eastern arch of the crossing survive to some height, but without their facing-stones. However fragments of the capital on the north side are of late Norman style, suggesting to Sir William St John Hope that the abbey had never been moved, and to Sir Alfred Clapham (more probably) that piers from the original church had been reconstructed in the new location. The internal structure of the nave, with its arcades and clerestory, is gone, but the outer walls, much patched, show on the south (cloister) side how the large arched windows of the south aisle, broadly spaced, rose up from the string course marking the roofline of the cloister walk.