Sual are square-topped. The actual arches are of two orders,

E. Now if that original disposition has been indicated correctly, the
crypt presented all the more important characteristics of a _confessio_.
There is the central chamber with a window looking into it (for this is
the probable explanation of the arched recess in the east wall),[65] and
there is the surrounding passage, which, however, is interrupted at the
south-west corner of the crypt in such a way that it is necessary to
pass through the chamber itself.[66] An excavation made in 1891[67]
failed to reveal any traces of a staircase at the east end of the south
passage, but as there are many instances in Italy of a _confessio_
without a second stair, this failure is of little importance. If, then,
this crypt may be assumed to be a _confessio_, there follows a very
interesting consequence. The fact that the surrounding passage was
entered from the east, that it runs round the west and not the east end
of the central chamber, and that the blocked window (if such it be) is
in the east wall of the latter, indicates that the nave lay to the
east,[68] in other words, that the presbytery was at the west end of the
church. Such a position for the high altar is ultra-Roman, was already
being discontinued in Wilfrid's day, and had probably never been seen in
the north, unless here and at Hexham; all of which considerations, in
the light of the known bias and character of Wilfrid, are in favour of
the theory above propounded.[69] It is impossible to say with certainty
whether Wilfrid's presbytery was apsidal or square; and whether his
church had aisles or not.[70] [Illustration: CONJECTURAL PLAN OF THE
CRYPT AND PRESBYTERY IN THE TIME OF WILFRID, BY MR. J. T. MICKLETHWAITE,
V.P.S.A. (By permission of the Archaeological Institute.)] There remains
the question whether this crypt was or was not under the church of the
monastery. In Leland's description of Ripon,[71] "the Old Abbay of
Ripon" is certainly represented as