It is more common in some parts of the country than in others: this feature seems to have taken the place of the inner plane of decoration, with tracery and shafts, of the Early English style, and it disappears altogether in the succeeding style. There is a good example of this inner arch in Broughton Church, Oxfordshire. This foliated inner arch is not a very common feature.
Ardley, Oxon.
Square-headed windows are very common in this style in many parts of the country, especially in Leicestershire and in Oxfordshire, as at Ardley. Windows with a flat segmental arch are also frequently used in this style, and the dripstone, or projecting molding over the window to throw off the wet, is sometimes omitted, as at Stonesfield, which has also an elegant detached shaft in the interior.
Stonesfield, Oxon, North Window, c. A.D. 1320.
Interior and Exterior.
Windows in towers are usually different from those in other parts of the church. In the upper storey, where the bells are, there is no glass; in some parts of the country there is pierced stonework for keeping out the birds, but more usually they are of wood only. These are called sound-holes.
The storey under this, where the ringers stand, is also commonly called the belfry, and the windows of this storey are also peculiar, sometimes richly ornamented as at Irthlingborough,—where it is part of the work of Pyal, the founder of the college in that parish, A.D. 1388.