A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



both sides. The walls are built of freestone rubble, 

 with wrought dressings. 



The plan is designed to give the maximum of floor 

 sp.nce, the necessary supports for the walls and roofs 

 being reduced to the smallest size consistent with 

 stability. The overlapping of the west tower by 

 the aisles, and its piercing on three sides with 

 wide arches, so as to make the whole area a prolonga- 

 tion of the nave, has indeed been carried to excess, 

 and the western b.iys of the aisles are now cut off by 

 blocking walls inserted to support the tower. 



The chancel has an east window of live cinquefoiled 

 lights, with tracery, partly ancient. The east bay is 

 blank on both north and south, except for a small 

 doorway on the north side ; the second and third 

 bays open to the chapels with arches of two moulded 

 orders on slender clustered piers of four engaged 

 shafts, with moulded capitals and bases, the details 

 and proportions being excellent. The chancel arch 

 and the nave arcades are of the same design, and 

 there is a continuous clearstory, with three windows 

 a side in the chancel, and seven in the nave, each 

 window being of three trefoilcd lights under a flat 

 head. 



The chapels are of the same width as the aisles, 

 and open to them by arches which die out at the 

 springing, and serve as abutment to the chancel arch. 



The north chapel is now used as vestry and organ 

 chamber. All windows in the aisles and chapels are 

 of four lights, but their original tracery has been re- 

 placed by poor stuff with intersecting mullions. 

 Modern tracery of better style is gradually being 

 substituted for this. The rear arches of the win- 

 dows are original, and the internal jambs run down 

 to the floor level with hollow-chamfered angles and 

 stops of a design belonging rather to the 13th than 

 the 15th century. There are small modern door- 

 ways in the east bays of both chapels, north and 

 south doorways to the nave, and a west doorway 

 under the tower. 



The south doorway of the nave is the principal 

 entrance, and has over it a vaulted porch of two 

 b,iys, the outer bay, which comes nearly to the line 

 of the street, being pierced with archways on the east 

 and west to give room for a procession path round 

 the church. The bosses of the vault in the outer bay 

 are carved with the Crucifixion and the evangelistic 

 symbols, and on the middle boss of the inner bay is 

 the Annunciation. This bay is lighted on the east 

 by a square-headed window of two lights, and has on 

 the west a vice in a projecting turret, leading to a 

 room over the porch lighted by windows on west, 

 south, and east. On the apex of the south gable of 

 the porch is a heraldic antelope. 



The north doorway of the nave is covered by a very 

 shallow porch with arched recesses in its east and 

 west walls, and a wide outer arch, above which are 

 two large gurgoyles. 



The west tower is of three stages, with panelled and 

 embattled parapets and octagonal angle turrets with 

 crocketed pinnacles. The belfry windows are large, 

 of four lights with tracery, and a transom at half 

 height ; below them a band of quatrefoils runs 

 round the tower. The second stage has small square- 

 headed windows of two trefoiled lights, and the west 

 window of the ground story is of three trefoiled lights 

 with intersecting tracery. It belongs to the beginning 

 of the 14th century, and is probably a relic of the old 

 parish church. The west doorway is plain, with a 



43 



four-centred head, the mouldings dying out at the 

 springing, and at the south-west angle of the tower is 

 a vice, with an external doorway. The north, south, 

 and east sides of the ground story of the tower are 

 pierced with wide arches, the east arch being abutted 

 like the chancel arch by arches across the aisles, dying 

 out at the springing. All three arches in the tower 

 have responds and capitals like those of the nave 

 arcades, but the arcades are composed of reused 

 voussoirs of early 13th-century date. The supports 

 being insufficient to carry the tower, the east arch 

 has spread, and the abutting arches across the aisles 

 have been strengthened, at first by the insertion of 

 half arches beneath them, and afterwards by being 

 completely blocked with masonry. The north and 

 south arches of the tower are also built up, and the 

 space under the tower panelled and ceiled in wood, 

 forming a lobby to the church. The west ends of 

 the aisles are used as vestries, and in the south-west 

 vestry is a large painting of Charles I. In the 

 north-west vestry the north window is built up, 

 except for a small square-headed opening, and in the 

 west wall is a second opening of the same kind. 



The external appearance of the church has been 

 injured by the loss of the original parapets and the 

 pinnacles which sprang from the buttresses of the 

 aisles. 



The chancel has an embattled parapet, and on 

 either side of the east window are canopied niches. 

 The church was repaired in 1 8 14, and underwent a 

 thorough 'restoration' in 1882-3, and all its wood- 

 work dates from that time, including the pulpit and 

 quire seats. The screens on the north and south 

 of the chancel were set up in 1904. 



The font is of the 15th century, octagonal, with 

 a bowl with quatrefoiled panels on a short panelled 

 stem, which shows traces of having been cut down. 

 There are no remains of ancient painting or glass. 



There are eight bells of 1808, by Dobson of 

 Downham, in Norfolk, and a small bell by Tobie 

 Norrls of Stamford 1675. 



The plate consists of a silver flagon, bread-holder, 

 and spoon of 1675, a flagon of 1703, a silver-gilt 

 alms-dish of 1704, silver-gilt paten of 171 1, silver 

 patens of 173 1 and 1734, two silver-gilt cups of 

 1799, and two plated and gilt cups, made to match 

 the other two, and given in I 872. 



The church possesses two pieces of old needle- 

 work, one of which, representing the Crucifixion, is 

 now worked into an altar frontal.' The registers begin 

 in I 5 58, and have only one gap, from 1644 to 1658. 

 There are also exceedingly interesting churchwardens' 

 accounts dating from 1467. 



In the last century four new parishes were formed, 

 St. Mary's, Boongate, by an order in council of Sep- 

 tember I, I 857 ; St. Mark's, 1858; St. Paul's, 1868 ; 

 All Saints', 1891. 



The grammar school, now in Park Road, was for 

 long held in the chancel of St. Thomas of Canter- 

 bury's chapel, a fine building oi circa 1350. Another 

 school-house is named in a roll of 3 Henry VIII, as 

 existing in ' Deadman's Lane,' a site which has not 

 been identified. 



In the rolls of the abbey certain crosses are men- 

 tioned, one apparently in the Marketstead (where a 

 pretty monument is now standing, built in 1 898), and 

 Barnard's cross in Westgate is repeatedly noticed. 



' From notes by the late Mr. R. P. Brereton. 



