Marble and local clunch. The plan of the building is cruciform (cross-shaped), with an additional transept at the western end. The total length is , and the nave at over long remains one of the longest in Britain. The west tower is high. The unique Octagon 'Lantern Tower' is wide and is high. Internally, from the floor to the central roof boss the lantern is high. The cathedral is known locally as "the ship of the Fens", because of its prominent position above the surrounding flat landscape. Norman abbey church Having a pre-Norman history spanning 400 years and a re-foundation in 970, Ely over the course of the next hundred years had become one of England's most successful Benedictine abbeys, with a famous saint, treasures, library, book production of the highest order and lands exceeded only by Glastonbury. However the imposition of Norman rule was particularly problematic at Ely. Newly arrived Normans such as Picot of Cambridge were taking possession of abbey lands, there was appropriation of daughter monasteries such as Eynesbury by French monks, and interference by the Bishop of Lincoln was undermining its status. All this was exacerbated when, in 1071, Ely became a focus of English resistance, through such people as Hereward the Wake, culminating in the Siege of Ely, for which the abbey suffered substantial fines. Under the Normans almost every English cathedral and major abbey was rebuilt from the 1070s onwards. If Ely was to maintain its status then it had to initiate its own building work, and the task fell to Abbot Simeon. He was the brother of Walkelin, the then Bishop of Winchester, and had himself been the prior at Winchester Cathedral when the rebuilding began there in 1079. In 1083, a year after Simeon's appointment as abbot of Ely, and when he was 90 years old, building work began. The years since the conquest had been turbulent for the Abbey, but the unlikely person of an aged Norman outsider effectively took sides with the Ely monks, reversed the decline in the abbey's fortunes, and found the resources, administrative capacity, identity and purpose to begin a mighty new building. The design had many similarities to Winchester, a cruciform plan with central crossing tower, aisled transepts, a three-storey elevation and a semi-circular apse at the east end. It was one of the largest buildings under construction north of the Alps at the time. The