in those two examples, the belfry-stage appears to have been considered no obstacle, as a weather-moulding cutting quite through the belfry windows testifies to a former high roof from the present walls, as another within records a still earlier one anterior to the addition of the clerestory. I think if any one compares these four churches on the grounds of general proportion, without reference to any particular theory as to the pitch of roofs, he can hardly fail to assign the palm of superior taste and judgment to the Northamptonshire architects.

As we go on with our Decorated series, we shall find repeated examples, not only of churches originally constructed or re-constructed with clerestories and low roofs, but of the clerestory and low roof substituted for a preceding high roof, over the same arcades, just as in Perpendicular. Higham Ferrers, in the double nave, is a notable example, and not very advanced in the style; later examples occur at Northborough, parts of Rushden, and the choir of Irthlingborough ; and the very fine clerestory at Kingscliffe is an insertion rather Decorated than Perpendicular. Or rather it is a re-construction, as I believe nearly the whole nave to be of one date, and the mark of a high gable in the west front need not only prove that the wall belongs to the early church, of which the tower still remains. As to original constructions, hardly any high roofs exist; the magnificent clerestory at Oundle has a low roof, though it may be objected that, as the tower is later, it may have been lowered; but in many of the numerous inferior examples, as at Charwelton, a contemporary or earlier tower hinders any such supposition. On the introduction of Perpendicular clerestories I need not enlarge: but I will mention the transepts of Rushden and the chancel of S. Giles, Northampton, as instances of buildings without clerestories having their roof lowered- though in the latter case not to the full extent of its present depression-in Decorated times; the former, however, was connected with the introduction of a clerestory into the nave. The roofs of the aisles are usually lean-to, so that the clerestories stand out conspicuously; now and then, however, as in the south aisle at Chipping Wardon, a low-pitched compass roof is seen, which is more usual in Leicestershire, but the effect is never good, as tending to conceal the clerestory. A more remarkable exception is Stanion, where the north aisle retains a distinct high-pitched roof, and the clerestory wall on that side has no windows, while the usual arrangement is found on the other side. Possibly the completion of the alteration was interrupted, of which there is a very extraordinary instance in the poor little church of Whetstone, in Leicestershire.

I shall not accumulate instances of the omission of the clerestory, as the great majority occur in rude, patched, and mutilated churches, and I do not remember any example in any building of much consequence. I have already alluded to two instances in which it is absent, where we should most confidently have looked for it, and I will add another in the northern part of the county, where the church, though of no great size, has several interesting points of detail, and is still more remarkable from its complete departure from the usual type of outline. This is at Werrington, where the church consists of a nave and aisles comprised under one steep roof, with the high roof of the porch projecting there.

from, a high-roofed chancel of the height of the nave, and a bell-gable over the chancel-arch, there being no steeple of any kind. The outline is highly picturesque, but as opposite to the usual aspect of a Northamptonshire church as anything that can be imagined. I shall have hereafter to allude again to this interesting structure.

"There are generally no aisles to the chancel," says the Hand-book. I at first thought that here also was an inaccurate statement, but the meaning intended to be conveyed by it is quite correct, although expressed in a manner calculated to mislead. The chancels are very frequently connected with chapels and other buildings, but the genuine chancel with aisles running to the east end, either with the clerestory prolonged over them, or with three distinct gables, is by no means common. The late Perpendicular type of the clerestory continued uninterruptedly along nave and chancel, without external division, is, as far as I am aware, only to be found in the Norman church of S. Peter, Northampton, and in the church of Little Harrowden, Decorated, if I rightly remember. Where the additions approach most nearly to the character of aisles, being continued from the aisles of the nave, they are not generally continued to the east end, but leave a presbytery marked in the construction, as at Irthlingborough, Rothersthorpe, Milton Malsor, Towcester, and elsewhere.

The chancel is usually lower than the nave, and generally, though less universally than the nave, has also a low roof, the pitch having frequently been lowered when the clerestory was added to the nave. Sometimes however the chancel is prolonged at the full height of the nave, of which very fine examples occur at Kislingbury, Higham-Ferrers, and Byfield, or at a height very little inferior, as at Great Harrowden, Ringstead, and Aldwinkle S. Peter's. All these are excellent Decorated examples, with low roofs, and the great height of the walls allows of windows of much more graceful shape than usual. But the chancels are generally of much less merit, and we do not often meet with the strongly-marked, high-roofed chancel, forming a distinct design of itself, which we might conceive existing separately as a chapel. This type however occurs at Crick, and on a still grander and more marked scale at Cotterstock, both Decorated, and valuable studies in the article of tracery. In Leicestershire this distinct, high-roofed, chancel is rather more common; Claybrook and Aylestone are well known and magnificent examples; in point of size the latter surpasses even Cotterstock, but is very inferior to it, as far as the windows are concerned.

The chancels being thus usually lower than the nave, and lowroofed, it follows that aisles continued from the nave cannot be advantageously attached to them. There cannot often be a clerestory, and the breaks in the roofs generally have an awkward effect, being a mere botch, as at Kingsthorpe. And where the chancel is higher and furnished with a clerestory, as at Irthlingborough, and Towcester, the matter is not much mended, for as the aisles do not reach to the east end, either the design of the clerestory must be interrupted, or there must be a window over another in the same wall, which never looks well. Milton Malsor, which otherwise has the same arrangement, cuts

the knot by having no window in the eastern bay, and Rothersthorpe by not piercing the clerestory wall over the chancel; but both these clerestories are very low and poor.

When the chancel has a single aisle, or rather chapel, more usually on the north side, and extending quite to the east end, still the effect is often not good. It is frequently a continuation of the north aisle of the nave, and therefore cannot possibly be made to harmonize with the chancel roofs; sufficiently hideous botches result from this arrangement at Staverton and Spratton, and, without the same excuse, at Ashby S. Ledger's, a church without any clerestory. Sometimes the chapel is quite a distinct building, forming a double chancel of the same size and height. It is so at Luffwick, but in the western view the effect is not good, the chapel rising unconnectedly above the aisle. The primary example is Higham Ferrers, where this difficulty is avoided by the magnificent, though extraordinary arrangement of the double nave and choir, of the same size and height throughout; the double nave has an aisle on each side, and a clerestory: the double chancel the southern the real choir, the northern a Lady Chapelstands free. Sometimes a chapel is attached with hardly any reference to any other part of the church, as the southern ones at Barnack and Welford.

I must mention a few other arrangements of chancels with aisles or chapels in some of the larger churches, which depart from the ordinary types. S. Sepulchre's, Northampton, has, or rather had, a magnificent triple choir, with three distinct and lofty gables, quite unlike the usual arrangements of the district. But the central gable was barbarously lowered, apparently when the large Perpendicular east window was inserted, and the more refined barbarism of modern days, more rampant in the parish of S. Sepulchre, Northampton, than in any other parish I have the honour of knowing, in its sedulous labours to efface every feature of beauty and interest from one of the most remarkable churches in all England, has thrown all three together into one hideous conglomeration of slates, leaving however the gables standing free to tell their own tale of what has been. Next to this we may fairly rank Stanion, with its beautiful double chancel, with two distinct high gables unaltered.

At Rushden, one of the first churches in the county alike for size, beauty, and singularity, we find a chancel with aisles, the lean-to roofs of the latter being connected with the low gable of the chancel itself in a way which produces the effect of one immensely wide gable.* This unusual preponderance of breadth can hardly be called a beauty, but its boldness, and the idea of extent conveyed, are very striking, and combined with the large and elaborate windows, and the generally rich and uncommon character of the whole, render this one of the most remarkable exhibitions of parochial architecture in England.

The east end of Oundle is very different, and though in both the spreading aisles and transepts produce the same appearance of extent of ground-plan, is more conspicuous for height than any other dimension. The aisles are of the height of the choir, and all have separate low * This is really the case in the neighbouring church of Wymmington, Bedfordshire.

gables. The choir projects a good way beyond the aisles, but a large sacristy ranges with the extreme east end. The grouping is very rich and varied; indeed I know no composition, from which the high gable is excluded, exhibiting so much of picturesque effect. The east end of Moulton church exhibits something of the same idea on a much smaller scale.

I have already said that the cross form is very rare; the true cross form, with the central tower, excessively so. I only know of three examples remaining, Castor, Kingscliffe, and Wollaston. The towers in the two first are Norman, the latter one of the finest Early Decorated specimens we have, but the church is modern. The tower of All Saints, Northampton, has been made western by the strange reconstruction of the church, but it was originally central, and the church probably cruciform. At Wood Newton also there are plain traces that the original fabric was a Norman cruciform church, probably therefore with a central tower; but the transepts are destroyed, and a Debased tower now occupies the west end.

There are a few other examples in which the two elements of the real cross form, the transepts and the central tower, occur separately. A few of the larger churches have transepts in conjunction with western towers, which produce of course little cruciform character, but contribute greatly to render the outline spreading and varied. I have already alluded to those of Rushden and Oundle, the like is the case at Finedon, and Polebrook; it was so also at Rothwell, but that superb church has lost both its transepts, and at Cottesbrook the southern one only remains. Irthlingborough has transepts, or perhaps rather, as they project only from the aisles, transeptal chapels ; still, while the church retained its high roofs, their importance in the general effect must have been far greater than at present.

An imperfect cross occurs in one or two cases, a single transept, or transeptal chapel, being added to the south of the chancel, as at Ecton, and in the far more important case of the extraordinary building which occupies that position at Northborough, where the single south transept, from its size and the ornate character of its architecture, throws the nave and chancel into complete insignificance.

A few others have central towers without transepts. At Roade church, a Transitional building, the tower stands between the nave and the chancel, without aisles, just as we see it at Iffley and Cassington. The same arrangement, with aisles, occurs at Duston, and at S. Giles', Northampton, in both of which the aisles run along the side of the tower, which rises like a gigantic clerestory, having a very odd effect. It is hardly possible to help believing that Duston is a direct imitation of its more stately neighbour, it has so completely the effect of a miniature of it. But S. Giles' has features wanting at Duston, in an immense transeptal chapel projecting from the chancel on the south side, consequently eastward of the tower, looking just like a transept pushed out of its natural place. Another smaller chapel, treated as an aisle, is added to the north side. This church is often spoken of as cruciform, but it will be seen from the above account that it is not strictly It was, however, at least intended to be so, as is testified by the

so.

superb Norman lantern arches, now blocked, but whether the transepts ever existed is by no means clear. But few of these cruciform and quasicruciform churches exhibit west fronts of any merit. Those of Castor and S. Giles', Northampton, have hardly any pretence to a regular design, though individual features in both, as the fine Norman doorway at S. Giles', are worthy attention. Kingscliffe, however, has a very good plain west front, well finished with buttresses and strings; the west window is, however, placed too low. Duston also has a very curious arrangement of lancets and Geometrical windows.

The outlines of the Leicestershire churches are, on the whole, much the same as those of Northamptonshire; but as that district has many more examples of small, rude, and imperfect designs, there are of course many more instances of the general type not being so completely carried out; there are many more churches without aisles, or with a single one; but in those which do present the complete type, it varies but little from that prevalent in Northamptonshire. The cross form and central tower are, as far as my experience goes, still rarer, excepting Melton Mowbray and some of the churches in Leicester, which, like those in Northampton, do not exhibit many of the local peculiarities. Barrow-upon-Soar is an example of a church with very long transepts, but, as they are lower than the main body, and the tower is western, but little cruciform effect is obtained. But two churches, Frisby and Asfordby, are remarkable for single south transepts, even more conspicuous than that at Northborough, as being furnished with western aisles. The towers are as generally western as in Northamptonshire. The clerestory is not quite so universal, and is far more generally a Perpendicular addition. I do not remember any exceptions besides one of lancets in S. Mary's, Leicester, and the Decorated ones at Gaddesby and Rotherby. But the work is generally much better than is common in the Perpendicular clerestories in Northamptonshire. Chancel aisles and chapels are much rarer than in that district.

We now come to that feature for which the Northamptonshire churches are most conspicuous, the steeple, which is so invariably western, that the above cruciform and quasi-cruciform churches exhaust all the examples I know of any other position, with three remarkable exceptions. One is the very remarkable church at Polebrook, where the tower, Early English, crowned with one of the best of the plainer broaches, stands in the worst position that a tower can occupy, namely, a corner of the west front, terminating an aisle. The fine fragment remaining of the Priory Church at Canons Ashby has a north tower forming part of the west front, but standing beyond the aisle, as at Wells and Rouen Cathedrals. It may possibly have been matched, or designed to be matched, by a similar one to the south, when the church was complete. The third is at Chelveston, where the tower stands apart on the north side, attached by a sort of transept. And we may here clear off a few churches which have no towers at all, as Werrington, already mentioned, with its central bell-cot, Northborough and Hartwell with western ones, and the hospital chapels in Northampton. To these I must add the well-known Early English church at Strixton. I must confess that, by one of