A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



a south transept equal in width to the first bay of the 

 nave, a modern south porch, and an octagonal stair- 

 turret at the south-west angle of the tower, and within 

 the west end of the south aisle. The chancel dates 

 from the beginning of the fifteenth century, and is 

 slightly wider than the nave, having probably been 

 built round a narrow chancel that was older than the 

 nave. An external weathering which runs along the 

 east face of the north aisle is continued to within a 

 short distance of the north respond of the chancel 

 arch, appearing inside the chancel. If this marlcs 

 the line of the wall of the older chancel, it would 

 show that the nave was set out without regard to its 

 width, and in the expectation that it would eventually 

 be rebuilt on a larger scale. Its north and south 

 walls must have been cut away to allow the responds 

 of the arch to complete themselves, and so remained till 

 their destruction to make room for the present 

 chancel. 



The chancel has a three-light east window between 

 two canopied niches for images, a two-light window at 

 the south-east, and a single trefoiled low side window 

 at the north-west. At the south-west is another 



I1-* Century. 

 □ Modem. 



OF SuNDON Church 



single-light window whose jambs have been carried 

 down to the floor level, probably to allow for a low 

 side window here also. East of this window is a 

 plain south doorway, and at the south-east of the 

 chancel is a piscina with a shelf, and at the 

 north-east a locker. The chancel arch is of 

 the same detail as the nave arcades, with engaged 

 shafts in the responds, moulded capitals and bases, and 

 an arch of two wave-moulded orders. The propor- 

 tions of the nave arcade are unusually fine and lofty, 

 and the piers in the western bay are made of larger 

 diameter and have an extra order in the arch to carry 

 the tower walls. Each pier of the arcade is steadied 

 by a flying buttress to the aisle wall, which, however, 

 does not in every case coincide with the external 

 buttress, and the piers are in consequence somewhat 

 out of the perpendicular. The north wall of the 

 north aisle is an interesting example of mediaeval 

 methods in this respect. Its buttresses are accurately 

 spaced with regard to its external elevation, and take 

 no account of the points where the flying arches from 

 the north arcade abut, although their obvious func- 

 tion should be to take the thrusts at these points. 



The three north windows in the north aisle are of 

 two trefoiled lights with a quatrefbil in the head, and 

 the single window on the south side of the south aisle 

 is of a similar type but wider. In the transept are 

 three-light windows with net tracery on the east and 

 south, but the east window of the north aisle is al- 

 together of a different kind. Its jambs are of the 

 same simple section as those of the other nave windows, 

 but its head is filled with a very beautiful piece of 

 geometrical tracery much more carefully moulded and 

 having a quatrefoiled circle in the head with foliate 

 cusps and in the main lights pierced trefoils over tre- 

 foiled arches. It is probably one of those rather rare 

 examples of a ready-made window bought, perhaps, 

 in London, where workmen more skilful than those 

 to be had locally were employed, and sent down to the 

 country to be fitted to locally-made jambs. The style 

 of the ' ready-made ' tracery is some thirty years earlier 

 than that of the other windows, which would be very 

 likely to be the case if the manufacturer had a con- 

 siderable stock of such things at his workshop. It is 

 interesting to note that many of the dripstones to the 

 labels in the nave are unfinished or left in the rough as if 

 the work had never been 

 brought to completion, and 

 the upper story of the tower 

 is also of a later date than 

 the lower parts, a fact which 

 strengthens the inference. The 

 north and south doorways of 

 the nave are plain fourteenth- 

 century work with continuous 

 mouldings, and above the 

 arcades are small square clear- 

 story windows inclosing qua- 

 trefoils, also of fourteenth- 

 century date. There are three 

 on each side of the nave, but 

 two of the six are blocked up. 

 At the west end of the nave 

 under the tower is a large 

 three-light window with net 

 tracery of rather coarse detail, 

 and beneath it is a wide 

 blocked fifteen th-century door- 

 way. There are stone benches along the north wall 

 of the north aisle and along part of the south wall 

 of the south aisle. 



In the south transept is a contemporary trefoiled 

 piscina, and on either side of its east window canopied 

 niches of the same date and design as those in the 

 chancel. In the second stage of the tower, which is 

 reached by the circular stair at the south-west, 

 are arched openings on the north and west which have 

 never been filled with stone tracery, but are more 

 adapted to wooden doors or hinged shutters. That on 

 the north is now blocked with masonry. There are no 

 definite signs here, as at Barton in the Clay, that this 

 part of the tower has been used as a dwelling-room, 

 but It IS not improbable that such has been the case! 

 The woodwork in the church is of several dates| 

 the nave roof being modern while that of the south' 

 transept is apparently mediaeval. At the chancel arch is 

 a fifteenth-century screen with solid lower panels in 

 which eyeholes have been cut, and in the r 

 half a dozen seventeenth-century pews and 

 many of the eighteenth. In the chancel 



386 



nave are 

 good 

 J. - - is an ex- 



ceedingly fine fourteenth-century oak chest, its front 



