STONE PULPITS.
(Vol. viii., p. 562.)
To Mr. Kersley's list I can add, from my own county, St. John the Evangelist, Cirencester, used; SS. Peter and Paul, Northleach, used; Staunton, All Saints, in the Hundred of St. Briavell's, Dean Forest, not used.
The last has a curious double arrangement in two storeys, like a modern reading-desk and pulpit, projecting west from the north side of the chancel arch, or rather (if I recollect rightly, for I took no notes on visiting the church) of the west tower arch, and to both which there is access from the newel leading to the ancient rood-loft.
To the above might be added those of Coombe, Oxon; Frampton, Dorset; and Trinity Church, Coventry: and if any other than those in churches, the angular one in the entrance court in Magdalene College, Oxford, from which, formerly, the University Sermon used to be preached on the festival of St. John the Baptist, when the court was strewed with rushes for the occasion (vide Glossary of Architecture, in verb.); that in the refectory of Tinterne Abbey, Monmouthshire; and the well-known exquisite specimen of the later First Pointed period, occupying a similar locality in the Abbey of Beaulieu, Hants, so elaborately illustrated by Mr. Carter in Weale's Quarterly Papers.
Brookthorpe.
A collection of English examples alone would make a long list. Besides the well-known one (A.D. 1480) in the outer court of Magdalene College, Oxford, the following are noted in the last edition of the Oxford Glossary, viz:—Beaulieu, Hants (A.D. 1260); Beverley; Chester; Abbey Garden, Shrewsbury: these are in refectories of monasteries. In churches—at Cirencester; Coombe, Oxon (circa A.D. 1370); Frampton, Dorset (circa A.D. 1450); Trinity Church, Coventry (circa A.D. 1470): the latter appears from the cut to be stone.
In the second edition of the Glossary is also St. Peter's, Oxon (circa 1400).
Devonshire abounds in good samples: see Trans. of Exeter Architectural Society, vol. i., at table of plates, and the engraved plates of three very rich specimens, viz. Harberton, Chittlehampton, North Molton, each of which is encircled by canopied niches with statues.
At North Petherton, in Somersetshire, is a curious grotesque human figure of stone, crouched on the floor, supporting the pulpit (which is of wood, as I think) upon his shoulders, Atlas-like.