B>/ 0. E. Pontmg, F.S.A. 



39 



The ceiling over the lower stage of the tower is a richly-panelled 

 and traceried one, and is illustrated by Sir B.C. Hoare, 1 but it has 

 been much renewed, as an entry in the accounts of the restoration 

 in 1855 shows,- and the four angle panels are now plain. The 

 ceiling springs from stone corbels in the angles. 



The bowl of the font is coeval with the re-modelling ; it is of 

 Purbeck marble, octagonal in shape, each side having a traceried 

 panel — a qua trefoil with multifoil cusping, with a plain shield in 

 the centre : this work strongly resembles that of the tomb of the 

 first Lord Stourton, and the parapet of the tower. The stem and 

 base were renewed in 1855, but it had again become so disintegrated 

 that it had to be further renewed in 1895, when some departure from 

 the design of the old shaft — the cusping having been omitted — was 

 inadvertently made. The font was formerly where it now stands, 

 but it was subsequently removed to near the north door, and replaced 

 in the tower last year. 



The rood-screen is a magnificent one ; it is of the full width of 

 the nave ('23ft. Gin.), and 15ft. high from the nave floor to the floor 

 of the loft ; it is divided into five main bays by moulded mullions 

 treated as shafts, from which, and from the wall shafts, spring — on 

 both the east and west sides — the rich fan- vaulted cove to the loft : 

 the panels of the groining are elaborately traceried. Each main 

 bay is subdivided into six lesser bays by moulded smaller mullions 

 which are carried through the lower panelled stage and the two 

 open stages above to the arch-ribs of the vaulting. A heavy 

 transom, with carved paterse in a sunk member, divides the open 

 stages, and beneath this, in the central bay, come the folding doors 



1 Hoare's Hund. of Mere, p. 10. 

 a The following builder's estimate was accepted for work to this ceiling at the 

 restoration in 1855 :— " Restoring and repairing, cleaning and stopping framing 

 to tower ceiling. Taking out the whole of the panels, cleaning, repairing, and 

 stopping suffnt. for 4 setts with plain deal stained panel in angles of ceiling, new 

 cross mouldings but without earvings to same, the centre piece to have uew 

 panels, and the whole cased with inch deal, cleaned, repaired, and stopped, the 

 bosses and angel carvings of principle framing to be made good, the bosses on 

 next smaller size to be made good, but not angel carving, the whole to be properly 

 cleaned and to have 2 coats oiled with boiled oil properly rubbed in. £33 l<Vv" 



