ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IX FORDIXGTON CHURCH. 191 



The plan of the pulpit is five sides of an octagon, having a 

 sunk panel to each, the angles being formed like a mullion, with 

 a roll, fillet, and two half rounds, finishing on to a splayed 

 base, the head mould of the panels being half the section of the 

 angles. The bed mould is of an ogee shape, very incongruous 

 and out of place, and the base is very crude. 



Tradition and report say that the beautiful Perpendicular 

 chancel became very dilapidated and neglected, and probably 

 suffered considerably through the ordinances of the Puritan 

 Lords and Commons ; and it is surmised that it would have 

 cost considerably more to restore it to its original and pristine 

 state even if there had been the desire in those Puritan times 

 so to do than to pull it down and erect something less costly to 

 keep up and maintain. Whether this be correct or not, the 

 beautiful old structure was swept out of existence with all that 

 was left remaining undemolished, as recorded in Hutchins, 

 and the dwarfed, quaker-meeting-house-like erection substituted 

 in about the year 1750 by Mrs. Pitt, the impropriator. 

 The architectural student might with truth and honesty say 

 " Ichabod." 



Its appropriateness is about equally as suitable for that of a 

 board room to an infirmary as that of an annexe to some public 

 offices, or even of a shrine to Venus ! It does not breathe or 

 inspire that spirit of devotion which is so strongly marked a 

 characteristic of our mediaeval structures. It is singularly in- 

 appropriate for the services of a church choir or choral singing. 

 I myself have experienced it ; and the decani and cantori sides 

 seem to be singing into one another's faces, in the most trying 

 and uncomfortable manner, which makes you feel you want to 

 get out of it, and the sooner the better. Again, the organist and 

 his choir cannot possibly get in touch with one another. The 

 result is that no improvement of the choir and really good 

 singing even of the simplest music can be effected at St. George's. 

 People with good voices and proper regard for how music should 

 be rendered will not readily join the choir and put up with it. It 

 is an erection that does not effectively answer its purpose, and 



