108 Some Early Features of Stockton Church, Wilts, 



if the oval pointed figure called by Albert Durer " vesica piscis," 

 has any relation to the early Christian symbol a fish , it was 



only natural that this rude outline of a fish, as some assert it to be, 

 should occasionally be shown in a horizontal — the usual swimming 

 — position. All this might have been in vain if I had not been 

 enabled by the suggestion of a kind and valued friend, the Rev. 

 G. F. ISaxby, to refer to a passage in Archseologia Cantiana, where a 

 " horizontal vesica piscis/' in combination with round arches, is figured 

 and described as unique. 1 This settled the question as to a horizontal 

 " vesica piscis " being a genuine feature of Early English architecture, 

 but I should be much interested by hearing of other examples. 



On the south side of the little chancel are two lancets. The 

 westernmost of them is brought down lower than the other, but the 

 sill is, nevertheless, 5ft. 6in. above the floor of the chancel. The 

 height of this window is 6ft. 3in., and the width 1ft. Tin. It is 

 fitted at the lower end with a casement not very recent. The upper 

 part of this window has a groove on each side in the stone-work, as 

 if a shutter or compartment of the window sliding upwards like a 

 sash, had preceded the casement, or co-existed with it, for the pur- 

 pose of distributing doles to lepers or other applicants from without. 

 It is clear that this arrangement must have been made for some 

 special purpose, but what that may have been is a matter of specu- 

 lation. 



The next feature I have to notice, the eastern wall of the nave, 

 appears to me of great interest as illustrating, when compared with 

 similar examples in England and with Greek and Latin Churches, 

 the whole history of chancels, choirs, and chancel screens, and shew- 

 ing the influence of Greek ritual and tradition in the far west at a 

 very early date. 



In this remarkable east end of the nave there is a doorway with 

 folding gates, where we should have expected a chancel arch, and on 

 each side there is a hagioscope, having the base 3ft. 7in. above the 

 floor. These hagioscopes have pointed arches, converge accurately 



1 Vol. vii., p. 82, 83 ; London, printed for Kent Arch. Soc, by Taylor & Co., 

 1868. 



