S. Mary Magdalen, Oxford, c. A.D. 1500.
The figure of the patron saint over the outer door of the porch of a parish church has frequently been preserved; occasionally the figures in the niches of a churchyard cross still remain.
Corbel, Rushden, c. A.D. 1500.
The frequent use of figures, simply as corbels between the windows of the clere-storey to carry the roof, is a good characteristic of the late Perpendicular style; they are generally of the time of Henry the Seventh or Eighth, as at Rushden, Northants. The figure used is generally that of an angel, and each angel is sometimes represented as carrying a different musical instrument, so as to make up a heavenly choir. In this instance the instrument carried is one sometimes called a mouth-organ, or shepherd’s pipes.
The splendid Open Timber Roofs, as at St. Stephen’s Church, Norwich, which are the glory of the eastern counties, belong almost entirely to this style; the screens and lofts across the chancel-arch, and often across the aisles also, and the richly carved bench-ends for which the West of England is so justly celebrated, also belong to it; in fact, nearly the whole of the medieval woodwork which we have remaining is of this style, and this material appears to be peculiarly adapted for it. It may reasonably be doubted whether the modern attempts to revive the woodwork of the Norman and Early English styles are not altogether a mistake. Nothing can well exceed the richness and beauty of the Perpendicular woodwork, and it is easy to imagine that a church of the twelfth or thirteenth century has been newly furnished in the fifteenth or sixteenth. We have, however, some very beautiful examples of Decorated woodwork in screens, and stalls with their canopies, as at Winchester; there are also a few wooden tombs of that period.
In Norfolk there are several fine examples remaining of galleries and screens, commonly called roodlofts, being used at the west end of the church also, under the tower, and across the tower-arch; and this in churches where the roodloft, properly so called, still remains across the chancel-arch, so that there is a
St. Stephen’s Church, Norwich, c. A.D. 1500.