[24] "The porch of the church was anciently used for the performance of several religious ceremonies appertaining to Baptism, Matrimony, and the solemn commemoration of Christ's Passion in Holy Week," &c.—Brandon's Gothic Architecture. The Office for the Churching of Women also used to be said at the church porch.
[25] As our Commination Service declares, persons who stood convicted of notorious sins were formerly put to open penance. The punishment frequently inflicted was—that they should stand at the church door, clothed in a white sheet, and holding a candle in each hand, during the assembling and departure of the congregation on a Sunday morning. The old parish clerk of Walton-on-Thames, Surrey, remembers, when a boy, seeing a Jew perform this penance in Walton church.
[26] "Formerly persons used to assemble in the church porch for civil purposes."—Brandon.
[27] "At a very early period, persons of rank or of eminent piety were allowed to be buried in the porch. Subsequently, interments were permitted within the church, but by the Canons of King Edgar it was ordered that this privilege should be granted to none but good and religious men."—Parker's Glossary.
[28] The parvise is to be found over church porches in all parts of England. It is more common in early English than in Norman architecture, and very frequently to be found in churches of the Decorated and Perpendicular periods. Probably the largest parvise in England is at Bishop's-Cleeve, near Cheltenham. There are interesting specimens at Bridport, Bishop's Auckland, Ampthill, Finedon, Cirencester, Grantham, Martley, Fotheringay, Sherborne, St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, Stanwick, Outwell, and St. Peter's-in-the-East, Oxford. In a few instances there are two parvises, one over the north and one over the south porch, as at Wellingborough. In some cases, as at Martley, Worcestershire, the upper moulding of the original Norman doorway has been concealed by the parvise of later architecture.
[29] "The name was formerly given to a favourite apartment, as at Leckingfield, Yorkshire. 'A little studying chamber, caullid paradise.' (Leland's Itinerary.)"—Glossary of Architecture.
[30] The room may have been the residence of one or more of the ordinary priests of the church, or perhaps only a study for them (see previous note), or it may have been occupied by an anchorite or hermit, or by a chantry priest. Rooms for these several purposes are also not unfrequently to be found over the vestry, as at Cropredy, near Banbury, and at Staindrop, Durham.
[31] Fire-places are of frequent occurrence in these chambers; many of them are coeval with the porch, but others appear to have been erected at a later date.
[32] At Hawkhurst, Kent, the porch-chamber is called the treasury. At St. Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, the room over the grand north porch, in which are the remains of the chests in which Chatterton professed to find the manuscripts attributed to Rowley, was at one time known as the treasury house.
[33] "The chamber over the porch was generally used for the keeping of books and records belonging to the church. Such an appendage was added to many churches in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; and some of these old libraries still remain with their books fastened to shelves or desks by small chains."—Brandon's Gothic Architecture.