Fig. 857.—St. Michael’s Parish Church. Piers.
The vaulting of the side aisles, both in nave and choir, is of the simplest description, but bold and light in its effect. The bosses of the north aisle of the nave contain shields charged with armorial bearings, and still partly coloured. Small shields (without charge) are also picturesquely placed upon the nave piers (see [Fig. 858]).
A broad stone bench or seat is carried all round the nave, and the bases of the triple wall shafts of the vaulting, which are of good design, rest upon it. Those of the choir, which are of different design, descend to the floor, there being no bench in the choir.
In the nave there are triforium openings in each bay, and clerestory windows above them. The former have pointed arches, and each contains two pointed and cusped lights, divided by a central mullion. The clerestory windows have each a semicircular arch, and each contains a two-light pointed and cusped opening (see [Fig. 858]). Both clerestory and triforium openings have label mouldings in the interior. The light wall shafts which carried the wooden roof rest on corbels at the clerestory level. The choir (see [Fig. 859]) is distinguished from the nave by having no triforium openings, but the clerestory windows are similar in both.
The windows throughout the church are of large size, and mostly filled with good and varied geometric tracery ([Fig. 860]). That of the south transept has six lights, and the tracery (which has been renewed) is of good design. The restoration of the tracery of this window was carried out about 1840 by William Roberts, mason, who executed the work bit by bit, making the new tracery an exact copy of the old, which had been a good deal damaged. The south transept contained the altar of St. Katherine. It was in this transept that the strange apparition was seen by James IV. which warned him against his fatal expedition into England before the battle of Flodden.
Fig. 858.—St. Michael’s Parish Church. View from South-West.