254 



Notes on the Churches 



Perpendicular windows have a very peculiar type of tracery and 

 the labels have long terminals returned into the wall, the reveals 

 are carried to the floor and form seats inside. 



The cusping of the early west window has been cut away. A 

 piscina in the east respond of the arcade here doubtless indicates 

 the chantry chapel of S. Mary, S. Katherine and S. Margaret, in 

 which Robert de la Mere, a relative of William Beauchamp, of 

 Bromham, Lord S. Amand (and the sire of Richard, whose work 

 we saw at All Cannings yesterday,) ordered his body to be buried — 

 he died in 1457. The staircase to the rood-loft starts from this 

 chapel, but it is a fifteenth century insertion, as indicated by its 

 door arch and the little trefoil window — the stairs are in perfect 

 preservation : the passage is only 18in. wide, and affords one further 

 support to my contention that these staircases were not, in village 

 Churches, intended for the use of the priest. 



The tower is a good and notable example of early fifteenth century 

 work. It has buttresses standing square with its sides, and is 

 entirely without strings to divide it into its three stages. The 

 west window and door are treated as one feature, with bold 

 projecting jamb and arch mouldings carried to the ground — the 

 splay being panelled. The staircase stops at the belfry level, (I 

 would remark, in passing, that oyster-shells are freely used in the 

 joints of this part.) 



To return to the nave — the clerestory is coeval with the arcades 

 and the fenestration is remarkable : there are three of the original 

 single cusped lights on the north side and two on the south ; on 

 the north there is a very late (probably sixteenth century) three- 

 light window near the east end, inserted, doubtless, to throw more 

 light on the rood-loft, and a two-light one of the same date in the 

 centre of the south side — both of these have wood inside lintels, while 

 the rest have arches. The roof of the nave is, I think, coeval with 

 these late windows, but modern braces and rafters have been added. 



The south porch has a good inner doorway with cusped arch of 

 the date of the door and windows in the north aisle, and above it a 

 niche for a figure. There is a good corbel over the outer doorway 

 alsoj and part of a cross above. 



