A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



the south-west transept, where the font now stands, is 

 a piscina of late 13th-century style, like others in the 

 church, and the altar here may have been that of the 

 Holy Ghost, mentioned in 1539. In the Galilee 

 chapel in the west front was an altar of the Holy 

 Trinity. 



The position in the nave of the mediaeval font is 

 not certain, but a new one was consecrated in 161 5 

 by Bishop Dove. An illustration in Bridges' History 

 shows a font in a tall wooden oct.agonal case with a 

 domed top, standing against the west side of the ninth 

 pier of the north arcade of the nave. The remains 

 of this font are now in the south triforium of the 

 presbytery. The present font has a marble bowl of 

 the 13th century on a modern stem ; it was recovered 

 from one of the prebendal gardens, and now stands in 

 the south-west transept. 



The most notable modern works in the church are 

 tlie marble pavement of the presbytery, the alabaster 

 canopy of the high altar, and the quire stalls. 



The north and south transept chapels are enclosed 

 by 15th-century wooden screens,' but it is to be noted 

 that those on the west of the chapels in the north 

 transept are not designed for their present position. 

 The doors in the three west doorways of the church 

 are contemporary with the doorways and good speci- 

 mens of early woodwork. 



The roofs of the transepts and nave preserve their 

 original 12th-century boarded ceilings, the boarding 

 being arranged in lozenge patterns. In the transepts 

 the ceilings are flat, and only retain faint traces of 

 their former decoration ; but the nave ceiling, reset at 

 a slightly higher level in the 14th century, when the 

 western arch of the crossing was rebuilt, retains its 

 original canted form and painted decorations, though 

 the latter were much injured by repainting in 1834. 

 The enclosing borders are in black and brown, follow- 

 ing the lines of the boarding, the most interesting 

 pattern being a stepped chevron, which occurs as a 

 masonry detail at Tickencote church in Rutland and 

 elsewhere in late i 2th-century work. The scheme of 

 subjects in the centre of the lozenges is obscure, com- 

 prising figures of kings, queens, and saints,' grotesque 

 or allegorical subjects such as a monkey riding a goat, 

 a janiform head, an animal playing a harp, and the 

 like, and a few more obvious symbols, such as an 

 Agnus. 



The presbytery had at first a flat ceiling, whose 

 lines m.ay still be seen in places, but in the end of the 

 14th century it was replaced by the present panelled 

 roof with moulded ribs and bosses at the inter- 

 sections, and wooden half-vaults springing from the 

 12th-century vaulting shafts on either side. On the 

 principal bosses are the Crucifixion, the Assumption, a 

 Majesty, the Resurrection, the Annunciation, etc., and 

 the arms of the abbey ; the Crucifixion emblems and 

 some masonic devices also occur. 



The ceiling of the apse, painted with a figure of 

 Christ surrounded by medallions of the apostles 

 among the branches of a vine, is at a slightly lower level, 

 the vertical face between the two ceilings being 

 panelled with cinquefoiled arches. A former painting 

 of a majesty on this ceiling was destroyed in 1643. 



The traces of painted wall decoration in the church 

 are unimportant. Around the ground story of the 



apse are remains of shields with a background of a 

 dark green colour powdered with crescents, and the 

 same decoration is to be seen above the east respond 

 of the south arcade of the presbytery. The only 

 charges now visible are silver a fesse and three 

 scallops gu., and gu (?) two bars silver, in chief three 

 mullets. This painting is earlier than the 14th-century 

 windows inserted in the apse, which have partly 

 destroyed it, and is probably contemporary with the 

 alterations of f. 1280 in the presbytery aisles.' In 

 the south aisle of the nave some of the vaults have 

 been painted with a masonry pattern, probably 

 coeval with the five-light windows inserted c. 1300. 



What little ancient glass remains in the church has 

 been collected and set in the eastern windows of the 

 apse. These are pieces of 14th- and 15th-century 

 date, many of which come from a series representing 

 the history of St. Peter. Of the famous windows of 

 the cloister nothing survives, and the ' Paschal Pickerel 

 of Peterburgh ' is a memory only.' 



All the more important monuments were destroyed 

 in 1643, and the church is in consequence rather 

 ill-furnished in this respect. The earliest, however, 

 are of unusual interest, as they are of pre-Conquest 

 date, and, as regards one group, in their original 

 position. The largest is the shrine-shaped stone with 

 gabled top, known as Hedda's Stone or the Monks' 

 Stone. On each side is an arcade of six round arches, 

 with a figure under each arch, the chief being those 

 of Christ between our Lady and St. Peter, and the 

 rest are probably apostles. The top of the stone has 

 panels of interlacing ornament, and the ends are 

 rough and blank, except for the date 870 cut in 

 modern Arabic numerals. Above the arcades on each 

 side are some round holes about 2 inches deep. 

 Gunton ' s.iys of them ' the stone ... is now 

 amongst some known by the name of Peterburgh, and 

 there being certain little holes in the sides of the 

 stone, it was lately a merry custom for strangers to 

 put their fingers into one of these holes, that they 

 might say they had been at Peterburgh.' It has 

 been suggested that the stone is a shrine of St. Kyne- 

 burgha and her companions, made when they were 

 brought from Castor in the I ith century, and Gunton 's 

 words are curiously suggestive of the survival of some 

 such tradition, the small holes corresponding to the 

 recesses in the sides of a shrine. In his time, and 

 probably for a long time before, the stone stood in 

 the monks' cemetery, and the parallel between it and 

 St. Cuthbert's monument in the cloister garth at 

 Durham is worthy of note. 



In the north transept are several pre-Conquest 

 grave-slabs lying close together and apparently in their 

 original positions, one having the stump of its upright 

 footstone still remaining. They are decorated with 

 cruciform patterns and panels of interlacing work. 

 Several other early gravestones lie in the north tran- 

 sept and the New Building, and in the west wall of the 

 south transept is a stone with two standing figures of 

 pre-Conquest date. 



There are five marble slabs with effigies of abbots 

 ranging from the end of the 12th century to 

 c. 1250. Of these, four are in the south aisle 

 of the presbytery and one in the north. That at 

 the east end of the south aisle rests on a marble 



* Fifteenth-century screens behind the 

 quire stalls under the tower are shown in 

 Bridges' illustration of the quire. 



' There is a regular alternation of kings 

 and bishops in the central panels for some 

 distance. 



^ The arms may be those of the abbey 

 knights. * See Gunton, op. cit. 337. 



' Op. cit. 8. 



446 



