YORK: WITH A FEW NOTES ON BEVERLEY. 87 
This Screen is in the richest form of Perpendicular work, and is 
considered to be the finest specimen in the world. The niches 
contain statues of the kings of England from William I. to 
Henry VI. 
The West Window of the Nave, thirty feet wide by fifty-four 
feet high, is one of the finest examples of the Decorated period in 
the country. Mr. Britton says that, ‘‘it is an unrivalled specimen 
of the leafy tracery of the fourteenth century.” 
We now enter the Choir. The first thing that strikes an 
observer is the great height of the altar table above the Choir. 
The Presbytery rises in tiers or divisions of three steps each above 
the other, and the benches for the congregation are placed north 
and south on each of the landings, there are therefore fourteen 
steps up to the altar table. This certainly gives a very fine effect. 
The distinctive feature of the Lady Chapel is the great east 
window, which Drake calls the ‘‘ wonder of the world, both for 
masonry and glazing,” but other architectural critics are not 
disposed to allow it such an exalted position. One says ‘the 
tracery of the upper part is extremely beautiful,’’ another says “‘it is 
effective from its size but not from its design.” ‘There are about two 
hundred panels in the window, each about three feet square, and 
they contain subjects taken from the whole range of Scripture, 
those from the Apocalypse being interesting as showing how such 
subjects were interpreted at that time (viz. 1400). Most of the 
figures are about two feet in height, and I think, without doubt, 
it may be considered to be a marvellous piece of work. This 
window is seventy-five feet high and thirty-two feet broad. 
But the thing that mostly interested me in this window (as 
well as in the Choir Transept windows) was the means adopted by 
the architect builder to overcome the difficulty of building such 
lengthy and thin mullions without risk of what we call “ buckling.” 
You will note that these mullions are about forty-five feet high, 
and are on an average only seven to eight inches thick. Now, 
let anyone try the experiment of erecting a column of stones in 
these proportions, and see what would happen. But the York 
window is practically as strong as if it were cut out of a wall four 
