By C. E. Pontivg, F.S.A. 255 



by a low screen, and provision for the seclusion and digni'iy of the 

 sacred mystery being made by the baldachino and curtains over the 

 altar : the latter arrangement being in course of time improved 

 upon by making room for the choir within the structural chancel 

 and separating it from the nave by a screen moi'e or less open. A 

 good view of the interior of Stockton Church accompanies Dr. 

 Baron's paper; instead of the wooden doors shown in Dr. Baron's 

 view there are now good modern iron gates. 



I conclude that this wall, erected iu the fifteenth century when 

 screens were becoming more general, was probably intended to take 

 the place of the more usual kind of stone or wood screen, and a loft 

 (whether for reading the gospel from, or, as would seem more 

 probable in small Churches, merely to give access to the rood) 

 erected against the blank wall over, supported by corbels and ap- 

 proached by wooden steps. 



The window of three lights with semi-circular heads in the east 

 end of the north aisle is an Elizabethan one and was doubtless 

 inserted when this part was re-modelled to receive the still existing 

 monument of that period to the founder of Stockton House, his 

 wife and six children. The roof of the south aisle is a Jacobean 

 one; that over the nave bears the date 1757. The roof of the north 

 aisle is of cedar,' presented in 1880 by Bishop Moberly. 



' The history of this cedar, as it was told to the Members of the Society when 

 they visited the Church, July 28th, 1893, by Bishop Huyshe Yeatman, of 

 Southwark, is worth recoi'ding. Samuel Wilberforce, before he became Bishop, 

 was Rector of Brightstone, in the Isle of Wight. During a severe storm a ship 

 came on shore there, and the rector, after assisting in rescuing the sailors, had 

 them taken un to the rectory and cared for. The crew, desiring to make him 

 some acknowledgment of their gratitude, could find nothing to give him but a 

 log or logs of cedar wood which had formed part of the cargo of their vessel. 

 This he put away and determined to devote to some sacred purpose. Time passed 

 on, however, and he left Brightstone to become Bishop of Oxford without using 

 the cedar — which remained as a legacy to his successor, George Moberly. He, 

 too, in turn, left Brightstone to become Bishop of Salisbury, and took the cedar 

 with him. The Rev. Huyshe Yeatman— brother of Col. Yeatman Biggs, the 

 owner of Stockton, who restored the north aisle of the Church in memory of the 

 Topp family, the original owners of the property— happened to be the Bishop's 

 chaplain, and to him the Bishop offered the cedar if he would use it in Stockton 

 Church. The offer was accepted and the wood was used in the panelling of the 

 roof of the north aisle. 



