110 Some Early Features of Stockton Church, Wilts. 



unmistakably of a peculiar horse- shoe form, contracted at the base, 

 and bulging' out in the centre ; and that regret was not diminished 

 when, on removing" the adjoining walls on either side, there were 

 found, though concealed by the plaster, on the north side a rude 

 hagioscope or squint, and on the south side what appeared to be the 

 remains of an ambry, though some supposed this too to be a hagio- 

 scope." 



This statement of Rev. A. C. Smith enables us to see that the 

 Yatesbury arrangement resembled that at Stockton. It also sug- 

 gests the sad inference that what was done at Yatesbury has been 

 done elsewhere by less sympathising hands, and with no antiquary 

 near to remonstrate or record. 



"When a high and wide chancel arch was introduced in early times 

 a screen became almost a necessity, according to the notions then 

 prevailing. In the Church of Upton Scudamore, Wilts, which was 

 restored in 1859 under the care of Mr. Street, there is reason to 

 believe that a great part of a massive wall at the east end of the 

 nave was knocked out in the fifteenth century to make way for a 

 chancel arch and screen. 



In order to shew how the massive east wall of the nave in some 

 early churches in England, pierced by a doorway into the chancel, 

 with or without a perforation on each side, illustrates the whole 

 question of chancels, choirs, and chancel screens, let us take two 

 simple intelligible and typical Churches, one of the Greek and the 

 other of the Latin communion. Let the Greek example be St. 

 Theodore, at Athens, of which a ground-plan and exterior are given 

 by Dr. Neale in his Holy Eastern Church, vol. i., p. 171. 1 



We see in this plan that, however complicated a large Church or 

 Cathedral may be in the East or in the West, the essential divisions 

 are few and intelligible, viz., four : — i. the bema or sanctuary ; ii. 

 the choros or choir, for clergy and singers ; iii. the naos or nave, for 

 faithful worshippers ; iv. the narthex, for catechumens and penitents. 



On the bema stands the dyta rpdire^a, or Holy Table, with the 

 prothesis, or place of preparing the bread and wine, on the north, 



1 Also Ibid, p. 271. The plan is also given in Translations of Primitive 

 Liturgies by Neale, introd., p. xiv. ; London, Hayes, 1859. 



