The date of 1625 appears on a fine carved wooden pulpit, the sides of which are covered with semicircular-headed panels, in Huish Episcopi Church, Somersetshire.
In one of the churches at Wells is a fine wooden pulpit, of the date 1636; at the angles are columns of semi-classic design, fantastically carved; the panels are curiously ornamented with figures in relief, and it is supported on a stand composed of a square and four detached columns, above which are represented a number of birds with large beaks; the sounding-board over corresponds in design with the pulpit.
A very fine carved wooden pulpit, the sides of which are embellished with circular-arched panel and scroll-work, with the date 1640, and a sounding-board over, is contained in Cerne Abbas Church, Dorsetshire.
Many carved pulpits of this era have, however, no assigned date; they are commonly placed at the north or south-east angle of the nave, but never in the middle of the aisle, so as to obstruct the view of the communion table.
The commandments were again, by the canons of 1603, ordered to be set upon the east end of every church, where the people might best see and read the same; and other chosen sentences were to be written upon the walls of the churches in places convenient.
On the south wall of Rowington Church, Warwickshire, are sentences painted with a border of scroll-work; the like also occur at Astley Church, in the same county; and on the walls of Bradford Abbas Church, Dorsetshire, are sentences of scripture painted in black-lettered characters within panels surrounded by scroll-work.
By the same canons the churchwardens were required to provide, if such had not been already provided, a strong chest, with a hole in the upper part thereof, having three keys, of which one was to remain in the custody of the minister, and the other two in the custody of the churchwardens; which chest was to be set and fastened in the most convenient place, to the intent the parishioners might put into it their alms for their poor neighbours.
In the retro-choir, Sherbourne Church, Dorsetshire, is a poor-box with three locks; and a carved poor-box, of the early part of the seventeenth century, is preserved in Harlow Church, Essex. In Elstow Church, Bedfordshire, are the remains of a poor-box of the same period. In Clapham Church, in the same county, is an old poor-box, the cover of which is gone, on which are the initials I. W., and the date 1626: this is fixed on a plain wooden pillar near the south door; and in the south aisle of Bletchley Church, Buckinghamshire, is an oak pillar or shaft surmounted by a poor-box, with an inscription carved on it of “Remember the Pore,” and the date 1637[240-*].
The communion tables of the early part of this century were not so richly carved as those of the reign of Elizabeth, and in general the pillar-legs were plain and not so bulging; but the frieze or upper part of the frame-work, on which the table rested, was often covered with shallow and flat carved panel and scroll-work, and sometimes with the date of its construction.
In the church of St. Lawrence, at Evesham, the communion table bears the date of 1610; and round the frieze is carved an inscription, stating by whom it was given. In Cerne Abbas Church, Dorsetshire, is a carved communion table, bearing the date of 1638. The communion table in Godshill Church, Isle of Wight, is supported on four carved bulging pillar-legs; and round the frieze, below the ledge of the table, is the following inscription: