Page:The New Forest - its history and its scenery.djvu/158

Rh choir aisle, with its quatrefoiled parapet, whilst above gleam the traceried windows of the choir, with their flying buttresses; and beyond them again stands the Lady Chapel, surmounted by St. Michael's loft, ugly and vile.

Entering, and standing at the extreme south-west end, we shall see the massive Norman piers rise in long lines, lightened by their columns, and relieved by their capitals, the spaces above each arch moulded with the tooth ornament. Above springs the triforium with its double arches, some of their pillars wreathed with foliage, the central shafts chequered in places with network, and woven over with tracery. Above that again runs the clerestory, now spoilt, whilst an open oak roof, hid by a ceiling, but once rich with bosses and carved work, encloses all.

To go into details. The porch and north aisle are Early-English, whilst a Norman arcade runs the whole length of the south aisle. The tower, and choir, and Lady Chapel, are Perpendicular, and the nave, as far as the clerestory windows, Norman.

Passing through the rich but mutilated rood-screen, which, however, sadly blocks up the way, we reach the choir, with its four traceried windows on either side, and clustered columns, from which springs its groined roof with bosses of foliage and pendants bright with gold, whilst the capitals of the shafts and the quatrefoils of the archivolts are rich with colour. The stalls are carved with grotesque heads and figures, like those in the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity, at Stratford-upon-Avon. Before us now stands the lovely reredos, illustrating the words of Isaiah,—"There shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots." Jesse sleeps at the bottom, his hand supporting his head, whilst David, with his fingers on his harp-strings, and Solomon, sit on each side, 140