ON THE PERPENDICULAR OF SOMERSET. 41 
to the east end or within a bay of it, the distinetion of 
chancel and nave being made wholly by internal screen- 
work. It is indeed very usual for chapels to be added 
north and south of the chancel, but they almost always 
retain the character of chapels as distinguished from aisles, 
and the abrupt finish of their rich parapets often contrasts 
in a singular manner with the high-pitched dripping roof 
of the chancel. Wrington is a conspicuous instance. 
The typical Somersetshire Perpendicular church con- 
sists of a lofty and elaborate western tower, standing 
disengaged from the aisles; a nave and aisles, with or 
without a clerestory, according to circumstances, with 
very commonly a large southern porch as high as the 
aisles; a high roofed and comparatively insignificant 
chancel, containing traces, more or less extensive, of earlier 
work, but with Perpendicular chapels on each side. 
Transepts are not uncommon, but cannot be called 
typical. There is a tendency to polygonal turrets in 
various positions; west of the aisles, as at St. Cuthbert’s, 
Wells ; east of thenave, as at Banwell; flanking a west front 
without towers, as at Crewkerne and Bath Abbey; north 
or south of the nave and aisles, often forming an approach 
to the rood-loft, of which there is a remarkable instance 
at Burrington, crowned with an elegant little spire. 
Pierced and other enriched parapets are common. The 
roofs are of various kinds, but different forms of the coved 
roof are typical here, as in the rest of the West of England 
and South Wales. The interiors are rich in screens and 
other kinds of wood-work, but with these, as ecclesiological 
rather than architectural, I have at present nothing to do. 
We may generally remark, though the position must be 
taken with considerable exceptions, that the work in the 
northern part of the county is better than in the southern. 
1851, PART Ir. F 
