190 JOURNAL OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
two stages, without buttresses, and with the stair-turret in the 
centre of the south face—an arrangement not very common, though 
it is repeated at North Bovey, where, however, the turret is in 
the centre of the north wall of the tower. The Buckland tower 
tapers, and, though devoid of ornament, is exceedingly picturesque, 
and is an object of interest in a landscape of surpassing beauty. 
North Bovey is a good Perpendicular church, though much dis- 
figured by plaster outside, and intensely yellow wash inside. It 
consists of nave (of four arches on each side) 46 x 18, north and 
south aisles 58 x 10, and chancel 28 x 12, with a tower 22 x 21 of 
three stages, with stump pinnacles. The rood screen is in fair 
condition, and that portion of it opening into the choir is carved 
around with figures of the twelve apostles in niches, and with the 
conventional foliage between. How great must have been the 
delight of the carvers of this screen in their work, and in antici- 
pation of the Ze Deum being sung for centuries within its precincts, 
with that acclaim which they symbolized, — 
‘The glorious company of the apostles praise Thee!” 
There is no doubt that the greater part of the fine and elegant work 
in these churches was done by these carvers, who realized in wood 
what the masons were unable to any great extent to produce in 
granite. Whether they worked as members of a guild, or in family 
groups, or in a more isolated way, certain it is they attained to 
great skill and excellence in their art. What gave impressiveness 
to the chancel in the Devonshire churches, was not its loftiness or 
the elevation of the altar (it was seldom raised more than three 
steps), but the screen with which it was invested. Rogers expresses 
the idea in two lines— 
‘‘ Approach with reverence. ‘There are those within 
Whose dwelling-place is heaven.” 
The nave of North Bovey Church is almost entirely occupied with 
the original oak seats of the fifteenth century, and very fine, and 
massive (no ‘‘nicely-calculated less or more” about them), and rich 
in colour, they are. Even in the best of our modern church seating 
there is thinness and a certain economical though dainty look 
which you do not see in this old work. I have seen modern book- 
boards only half an inch thick, and scarcely strong enough fo bear 
the weight of an old woman’s prayer-book with her pocket hand- 
kerchief round it, much less her elbows. Here at North Bovey it is 
three inches thick, and the carved bench ends are 3? inches thick. 
