By C.,E. Ponting, F.S.A. 39 
The ceiling over the lower stage of the tower is a richly-panelled 
and traceried one, and is illustrated by Sir R. C. Hoare,! but it has 
been much renewed, as an entry in the accounts of the restoration 
in 1855 shows,’ and the four angle panels are now plain. .The 
ceiling springs from stone corbels in the angles. 
The bowl of the font is coeval with the re-modelling ; it is of 
Purbeck marble, octagonal in shape, each side having a traceried 
panel—a quatrefoil with multifoil cusping, with a plain shield in 
the centre: this work strongly resembles that of the tomb of the 
first Lord Stourton, and the parapet of the tower. The stem and 
base were renewed in 1855, but it had again become so disintegrated 
that it had to be further renewed in 1895, when some departure from 
the design of the old shaft—the cusping having been omitted—was 
inadvertently made. The font was formerly where it now stands, 
but it was subsequently removed to near the north door, and replaced 
in the tower last year. 
The rood-screen is a magnificent one; it is of the full width of 
the nave (23ft. 6in.), and 15ft. high from the nave floor to the floor 
of the loft; it is divided into five main bays by moulded mullions 
treated as shafts, from which, and from the wall shafts, spring—on 
both the east and west sides—the rich fan-vaulted cove to the loft: 
_ the panels of the groining are elaborately traceried. Each main 
bay is subdivided into six lesser bays by moulded smaller mullions 
which are carried through the lower panelled stage and the two 
open stages above to the arch-ribs of the vaulting. A heavy 
_ transom, with carved pater in a sunk member, divides the open 
_ stages, and beneath this, in the central bay, come the folding doors 
 Hoare’s Hund. of Mere, p. 10. 
? The following builder’s estimate was accepted for work to this ceiling at the 
restoration in 1855 :—“ Restoring and repairing, cleaning and stopping framing 
to tower ceiling. Taking out the whole of the panels, cleaning, repairing, and 
stopping suffnt. for 4 setts with plain deal stained panel in angles of ceiling, new 
cross mouldings but without earvings to same, the centre piece to have new 
panels, and the whole cased with inch deal, cleaned, repaired, and stopped, the 
bosses and angel carvings of principle framing to be made good, the bosses on 
next smaller size to be made good, but not angel carving, the whole to be properly 
cleaned and to have 2 coats oiled with boiled oil properly rubbed in. £33 15s.” 
