854 Architectural Notes of the Warminster Meeting. 
fine Perpendicular work, the wind-braces being foliated, with cusps 
tipped with carved foliage. There are some slight remains of the 
screen, iz situ, and some good linen-panels, worked up in doors. 
This old house is noticed and figured in Parker’s “ Domestic 
Architecture of the Middle Ages,” but much more is remaining 
than that author supposed, and the Flowing Decorated window, on 
the north side of the chapel, is an integral part of the original 
chapel, not copied, or removed from elsewhere, as he has stated. 
Mere Church is of various dates, ranging from the thirteenth 
to the fifteenth century. It has a very fine Perpendicular tower, 
resembling in its general character that of St. Peter’s Church, 
Marlborough, but richer. The nave is Perpendicular, with a fine 
roof, and there is a remarkably fine rood-loft of the same style. 
The aisles and porches, and the chapels on each side of the chancel, 
are mainly Decorated. The oldest portions of the church are found 
im the chancel, where, to the best-of my recollection, the angle- 
buttresses are Early English, and other indications of the same date 
are found on the south side. In the north wall there is a window, 
later than these, but still of good early Geometrical character, which 
appears to have been restored, and now simply forms an opening 
between the chancel and its north chapel or aisle. The chancel has 
a clerestory which is a late addition. There are some stalls in the 
chancel, and on them is carved a shield, bearing “ three wolves 
within a border,” the arms of “ Gilbert Kymer, Dean of Sarum 
1449—63, and as such Rector of Mere.” * Aubrey says “ in the north 
aisle is a kind of Balcony, as it were for an organ, on which these 
coats are painted” (giving sketches). I will draw attention to one of 
these devices later, but first consider the position of the gallery itself 
which has disappeared. In the north arcade of the chancel, the arch 
nearest the chancel arch has been carried up to a considerable height, 
apparently by an alteration, in the fifteenth century, of the earlier 
arcade. JI think it most likely that this is the site of the gallery or 
“balcony” mentioned by Aubrey, and the more so as the only explana- 
tion of this singular arch that suggested itself to me on the spot, before 
1 Vol. ili., p. 332. 
2 Jackson’s Aubrey, p. 386, note, 
a 
4 ieee 
