Ronald P. Jones, Photo.]
CHOIR STALLS, FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
The Stalls—thirteen on either side and eight returned against the Rood Screen—are exquisite specimens of fifteenth century woodwork. They are surmounted by lofty canopies of elaborate tabernacle-work supported on slender shafts and rising into a forest of crocketed spirelets and pinnacles. There are ribbed vaults under the canopies, and upon the pendants in front are hovering angels. The canopies on the south side were wrecked by the fall of the spire in 1660, and those over the eight easternmost stalls were then reconstructed in the ‘Jacobean’ style with a gallery above, while of the canopies now over the other nine, eight are said to have been brought across from the eastern end of the north range, where more Jacobean canopies were erected in their place. Sir Gilbert Scott removed all this seventeenth century work and set up reproductions of the fifteenth century design. Thus the eight easternmost canopies on either side are modern. The misereres and arms of the stalls are exquisitely carved.
Jonah emerging from the whale. Pelican feeding her young.
Watson, Ripon, Photo.]
MISERERES, FIFTEENTH CENTURY.
The subjects upon the former are as follows, beginning from the archway in the screen:—