Lancaster
The Lancaster stalls may be regarded as the Flamboyant version of the stallwork of Winchester cathedral, with which they should be compared ([34]). Like the Winchester stalls, they are but one story high; they do not aspire to the two stories of Ely and Norwich. There is a tradition, unsubstantiated, that these stalls came from Cockersand abbey in 1543. But St Mary's, Lancaster, was a priory church attached, first, to the abbey of St Martin, Sées, in Normandy, and then, when alien priories were suppressed, transferred to Sion abbey, Middlesex. In 1367 Lancaster priory had a revenue of £80, say £1,200 per annum, and was quite able to provide stalls for itself.
Hereford Cathedral
The lower part of each canopy consists of an ogee arch; this is somewhat low, but in compensation is surmounted by an exceptionally lofty pediment. Both ogee arch and straight-sided pediment are filled with perforated tracery. All this tracery, both above and below, differs from bay to bay; the craftsman would not and could not repeat them; he was simply overflowing with inventive design. The tracery of the ogee arch rests on an arch, usually an ogee arch, which is cusped in ogee, semicircular or segmental curves, tipped with charmingly diversified pendants of faces, fruits and foliage; the interval between
the two arches is filled with a network of compound curves—a labyrinth of beautiful forms—enticing the eye to attempt to follow their ramifications by ever new routes; each little pattern is cusped, and each has the ogee curve at one end or both ends, or at one side ([41]). Equally ingenious and diversified is the tracery which fills up the tall pediment. The broad band of foliated ornament, which forms a kind of continuous crocketing, in spite of much mutilation remains the richest example in English woodwork.[[20]] Notice too the little masks which immortalise the features of the Lancaster men of 1340; sometimes no doubt they represent the carvers themselves.
Hereford All Saints'