There are also good foliage bosses against the walls between the pendentives. The westernmost pendentive on either side rests on a Perpendicular corbel carved with delicate foliage.
The general arrangements of the presbytery have been much changed since the middle ages. The altar then stood against a screen one bay in advance of its present position, and the iron hooks upon the second complete column from the east end on either side held, it is supposed, the Lenten Veil. Before the last restoration the altar stood, as now, against the east wall (on a single step, however), but the Sanctuary still extended two bays westward and was three steps above the rest of the choir, which was all on one level. Since then the floor has been raised one step at the east end of the stalls, and the steps to the Sanctuary have been diminished by one, while there are now two steps to the altar, and the Sanctuary and the raised portion of the choir have received an inlaid marble pavement. The reredos, an arcading of slender arches each enclosing a trefoiled arch impaling a trefoil, is a restoration of the original Decorated work. The latter had been covered by a painted screen of wood—possibly of late mediæval workmanship—and this again by a huge oil-painting of the time of Charles II. Both were removed to make way for a high reredos by Blore, which in its turn was taken down by Sir Gilbert Scott.[96] On the pavement south of the altar is a piscina, which (if this be its original position) must have belonged to a chapel or chantry behind the high altar—possibly the chantry of the Holy Trinity subtus altare.[97] From its position it would seem that in those days the floor here was considerably lower than it is now.
Ronald P. Jones, Photo.]
THE SEDILIA.
The Sedilia.—The last bay on the south side is now occupied by three sedilia and a piscina, which form one block. As might be expected from the mediæval position of the altar, they once stood in the second bay from the east, and they were not removed to their present position until the last restoration. Sir Gilbert Scott considered them late Decorated work, but they have rather the appearance of late Perpendicular. Over each seat is an ogee canopy, cinquefoil, crocketed, and surmounted by a huge finial. These canopies rest on square pillars, the sides of which are adorned with a sort of ‘four-leaved flowers,’ while the capitals are encircled with foliage in which are animals and monsters. Each pillar is surmounted by a pinnacle, and behind each canopy rises a crocketed gable, again crowned by a huge finial. The gables, the pinnacles, and the tops of the canopies are the work of Sir Gilbert Scott, who found the sedilia in a mutilated condition. Below the seats and the piscina runs a chamfer with ‘four-leaved flowers’ along it, and below this are panels enclosing trefoils containing faces. But the most curious feature of these sedilia is not perceived until a glance is given beneath the canopies. The carved ends of the cusps are in reality the heads of extraordinary grotesques whose bodies are curled up against the under surface of the arch. Some of these figures, in addition to their proper physiognomy, have faces carved on the crowns of their heads. The piscina, which has been converted into a credence table, has another ogee canopy, and is backed by a wall, along the top of which runs a band of foliage that is continued round the top of a square pillar at the end of the block.
The fine oak chairs in the Sanctuary are of modern construction but of old material, while the rails, lectern and pulpit are all modern.[98]
In the four easternmost bays the choir is separated from its aisles (except where the sedilia already block one arch) by elaborate oak screens of various designs, in the upper part of which the tracery is largely pendant—an arrangement characteristic of Yorkshire. These screens have been restored, but contain much of the old work, most of which is probably of the same date with the stalls.[99] Until the last restoration they were surmounted by seventeenth century galleries in the so-called Jacobean style.