ON THE PERPENDICULAR OF SOMERSET. 41 



The Charge of possessing a clerestory unworthy of the 

 arcades wliich support it, which I have brought to a certain 

 extent against Martock, is far more applicable to St. 

 Stephen's in Bristol. The arcades, taken alone, are, both 

 in Proportion and detaU, some of the most beautiful I know ; 

 but instead of the due horizontal and vertical divisions, 

 we have the clerestory windows recessed from the wall, the 

 siU belng brought down to the arch, so as to leave a sort of 

 pilaster between. If the church were vaulted, and the 

 blank part of the recessed space panelled, it might be 

 tolerable, but at present the effect is decidedly unpleasing. 

 And now for a few words on the interiors of the three 

 great churches, RedclifFe, Sherbome, and Bath. For the 

 first, words woidd fail to do justice to that noble vista, 

 exhibiting, as it does, the most perfect form of the 

 art carried out with a degree of individual merit which 

 approaches to faultlessness. And yet no one can fail to 

 recognize here the genuine local style, only carried out with 

 more elaboration in detail, and with the changes in propor- 

 tion rendered necessary by the addition of vaulting. The 

 Proportion of pier, arch, and clerestory is perfect ; the 

 clerestory is, appropriately, somewhat larger than in the 

 smaUer bulldings ; and from this cause, as well as from the 

 addition of vaulting, the piers are rather less slender than 

 at Yatton or St. Stephen's. In the nave, the quasi- 

 triforium space is paneUed, as at St. ^lichael's, Coventry ; 

 in the transepts there is an omamented spandril, as at 

 Martock ; a preferable arrangement, as the lines of paneUiug 

 do not rise well from the convex surface of the arch. The 

 arcade of the transept and the clerestory of the nave would 

 produce absolute perfection. 



The prcsbytery of Sherborne is very like Kedcliffe, and 



1853, PART II. P 



