The design of this early church cannot be confirmed, for no trace other than ground plan exists today, but Wolstan mentions a gateway tower situated some distance from the west end.

[5][7][8][9][10] Wykeham's successor, Henry Beaufort (1405–1447) carried out fewer alterations, adding a chantry on the south side of the retrochoir, although work on the nave continued.

From 1450 to 1528, under the leadership of Bishops William Waynflete, Peter Courtenay, Thomas Langton and Richard Foxe, major rebuilding and expansion was carried out on the Norman choir and Early English retrochoir.

Unlike the rebuilding of the nave some 100 years earlier, the Gothic presbytery was vaulted in wood and painted to look like stone, as at York Minster.

The 17th century saw important changes to the interior, including the erection of a choir screen by Inigo Jones in 1638–39, the insertion of a wooden fan vault underneath the crossing tower (previously the tower was open to the church) and the destruction of much medieval glass and imagery by Parliamentarian soldiers in December 1642, including the near-complete destruction of the massive Great West Window by Cromwell and his forces.

Jane Austen was buried in the north nave aisle in 1817, and many visitors continue to come today to see her final resting place.

[6] At the turn of the 20th century, Winchester Cathedral was in grave danger of collapse, and by the summer of 1905, the Dean, William Furneaux, was facing the imminent ruin of the building.

Jackson's prognosis was grim, and his survey showed the entire building was listing to the south-east, and sinking into the soft ground, most likely due to defects in the foundations.

[14] Jackson, acknowledging he was out of his depth, brought in engineer Francis Fox, whose company had completed projects such as the Mersey Tunnel.

Jackson and Fox sunk a trench to the foundations of the east end and discovered the Normans had constructed the entire cathedral on a 'floating raft', consisting of a 15-inch-thick layer of beech trees, laid diagonally one on top of the other.

Some of these beech trees were solid, but others had rotted and collapsed, and as they did so, the cathedral shifted and sank into the soft ground, which was not strong enough to support the enormous weight of the building, causing the cracks, bulges and leaning walls.

[14] Jackson and Fox proposed to sink a series of trenches around the eastern end, about 50 in number, down to the gravel bed, and to build up to the raft with concrete and brick.

[7][8][9][10][14] A special service was held on St Swithun's Day in 1912, attended by the King and Queen, to give thanks for the work of Jackson, Fox and Walker.

[24] During the end of 2012, a high-level internal access scaffold was erected in the presbytery to enable close inspection of the vault and clerestory windows.

The results of the inspection and analysis revealed severe corrosion in the windows, many of which had holes in and collapsed glass, and the failure of the lead roof above, which was causing degrading to the 16th-century wooden vault of the presbytery.

The south transept was then filled with scaffolding and sealed off at the tower arch from the rest of the cathedral, which was expected to remain for nearly three years.

[27] In January 2015, a massive scaffolding frame began to be assembled in the Outer Close, which would be raised to cover the entire presbytery roof.

Thanks to a grant from The Radcliffe Trust, the statue was replaced with a newly carved life-sized figure of a medieval ecclesiastic clad in an alb, made of Portland stone.

[33] In June 2017, the lift shaft and outer frame was installed, comprising 4 tonnes of steel rising 12.6 metres (41 ft) from the floor.

[38] A senior member of the chapter, Mark Byford, resigned, and the bishop, Philip Mounstephen, commissioned an independent review of the events that had preceded this.

[40] An article in The Critic said that "Sources in the Cathedral Close paint a picture of bullying, micro-management and control-freakery gone wild, with Lumsden the most recent victim".

[5] The north and south transepts are the oldest unaltered sections of the present cathedral, constructed under the auspices of Bishop Walkelin from 1079 to 1098.

Underneath the tower is the choir, separated from the nave by a large and intricate wooden screen dating from the 1870s, by George Gilbert Scott.

The Bible is on display for the public to view as part of the Kings and Scribes exhibition, and is kept in a climate-controlled room on the ground floor of the south transept.

[59] The present organ has its core dating back to 1851, when a very large instrument was built by Henry Willis and Sons for the Great Exhibition, held at The Crystal Palace, London.

This choir sings six services per week during term time, and all the boys are educated at The Pilgrim School, located in the Cathedral Close.

The girls' choir sing a weekly Sunday service with the Lay Clerks during term time and unite with the boys for the major festivals of Christmas and Easter.

However, by the time the metal had cooled, the bells tuned and rehung in Winchester, Edward had abdicated, and his brother George VI became king.

[citation needed] When he was posted to England during the First World War, Bill Wilson, the co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, visited the cathedral and had an initial experience of the presence of God.

[89] The cathedral is the starting point of the 34-mile-long St Swithun's Way, a Long-distance footpath which was opened in 2002 to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Elizabeth II.