Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/209

Rh work, a double Decorated piscina in the east wall, and three good Early Decorated sedilia. Beneath tlie chancel-arch is a stone rood-screen, plain, and supported by a simple pointed arch, now sustaining a huge organ gallery. The chancel is fitted with stalls, and the miserere seats exhibit grotesque designs, amongst which is a representation of the Scripture history of David and Goliath. All the ceilings are flat inside, but as the transepts and nave retain their ancient pitch on the exterior, it is possible that the original roofs may still remain. The central tower is sustained by four exquisite arches, the piers of which have been much cut to admit of the construction of galleries. The nave appears to be of Transition work, but approaches to pure Early English. Many of the pointed arches of this church are untrue, one side of the arch being struck from a different centre to the other. The whole church is furnished with a clerestory, and in the nave beautiful pillars and corbels remain, as if to sustain a stone roof. The pews are of a most unsightly character, as are the galleries. The arcade-work in the transepts is very fine; the font is surmounted by a handsome Perpendicular cover.

.—The nave is entered by three doorways, that on the west is very elaborate, but the shafts are gone; above each doorway is an empty niche; the south door had formerly a porch, which has long been demolished, leaving the flagging exposed in the church-yard; on one side of this door is a small trefoiled recess, which has apparently been a benatura, but the basin has been entirely destroyed. A mutilated stone coffin lies near the chancel door.

The church of St. John, Kirby Wisk, in the county of York, is built in the Decorated style, but the architecture of the chancel is much more florid than that of the nave. It consists of a western tower, nave and aisles, chancel and north aisle, and a modern south porch. Most of the nave windows have been modernized, but there are one or two in the north aisle with flowing tracery, and a square debased one with round lights without foliations, inserted in beautiful Decorated mouldings. The windows of the chancel are very good, but of the east window nothing remains excepting the five principal lights, the whole of the gable having been cut away to admit of the construction of a flat roof. On the north side of the nave there is a very good Norman doorway, and the priest's door is an excellent example of the Decorated style. All the corbel-heads are in good preservation and very beautifully executed. The nave is divided from the aisles by octagonal piers; there is nothing remarkable in the interior of this part of the church; the chancel is ornamented by three fine sedilia of equal height, terminating in finials, a trefoiled piscina, the bason of which is eight-foiled, having the form of a carved head, and two beautiful canopied niches at the sides of the east windows. One of the brackets of these niches has been represented in the Glossary of Architecture; the other is much