278 PoUerne. 



" In the fifteenth centun^ also the wide open lights of the belfry- 

 windows were built up with masonry^ to keep out the weather, open 

 tracery piercings being introduced to allow the sound of the bells to 

 pass out freely. 



" The tower has a flat leaded roof behind the parapets. 



" We have now briefly described tbe main structure, but a few 

 details require notice. 



" The Church contains portions of three fonts of difierent dates. 

 That now in use has a base and stem of the thirteenth century, while 

 the bowl is of late fourteenth centuiy work, but neither are very re- 

 markable as to design. The most curious of the three, and indeed in 

 an antiquarian sense the most interesting object in the whole Church, 

 is the large tub-shaped font now placed at the west end of the nave. 

 This is undoubtedly o£ great antiquity, and very probably dates from 

 before the Norman Conquest. The surface (excepting the upper 

 rim round which is cut in well-formed and legible characters a text) 

 appears to have been chiselled over at a period much later than its 

 first erection. It seems probable that the builders of the thirteenth 

 century, wishing to preserve so sacred an object in their new Church, 

 and finding it broken and injured, endeavoured to render it more 

 sightly by dressing it over — carefully preserving however its one 

 feature of interest, the text. The attempt appears not to have been 

 satisfactory, for a new font was made and the ancient one rever- 

 ently preserved by being buried beneath it, and there it remained 

 until, during the recent restorations, it was discovered and exhumed. 



''The internal walls were from the first plastered in the usual way 

 and decorated in a very beautiful manner, the surfaces being lined 

 out in what is generally known as the masonry pattern, simple in 

 the nave, and with sprigs and flowers in the chancel, while the 

 horizontal string was marked out by a band of richer work. The 

 east wall of the chancel was further enriched by a beautiful cross, 

 placed midway between the altar and tbe window sill on a ground of 

 lattice pattern with flowers. Fragments of this decoration were 

 discovered in almost every part of the Church, but the plaster was 

 in so decayed a state that none could be preserved. That on the east 

 wall had been coloured over and re-done in the fifteenth century, " 



