The flat surfaces in niches and monuments, on screens, and in other situations, are covered with delicately-carved patterns, called diaper-work, representing foliage and flowers; among which are introduced birds and insects, and sometimes dogs or other animals, all executed with much care and accuracy, and proving that the artists of that time drew largely from nature, the fountain-head of all perfection in art.

The sedilia, or seats for the officiating ministers on the east side of the altar, are frequently the most ornamental feature in the choir of a parish church; as at Chesterton, Oxon, in which they are very elegant, with light shafts and the ball-flower molding. These, with the piscinas, are frequently the only ornamental features in a country church, which is in other respects quite plain; the name Decorated is sometimes objected to on this ground, but the name has special reference to the window-tracery, which in the Decorated is a necessary part of the construction; this is not the case in the Early English style.

The Piscinas, or water-drains, and niches, or tabernacles for images, are often very rich, with canopies and open tracery. These objects commonly shew the chief beauties of this style; they are always on the south side of the altar, the locker or ambry for keeping the chalice, &c., is usually on the north side. The pediment, or straight-sided canopy, is much used in this style over doors, sedilia, piscinas, and monuments.

The Groined Roofs, or Vaults, are distinguished from those of the preceding style chiefly by an additional number of ribs, and by the natural foliage on the bosses. Many fine examples of these remain, as in the Cathedral of Exeter, and at York in the chapter-house; at Norwich in the cloisters; at Chester[E] the vault is of wood, with stone springers. There are a few instances of stone roofs of this style over narrow spaces of very high pitch, supported by open-work, as if in imitation of wood-work, as on the vestry of Willingham, Cambridgeshire, and the porch of Middleton Cheney, Oxfordshire.

Timber Roofs of this period are comparatively scarce, although they are more common than is usually supposed; but it is lamentable to observe how fast they are disappearing: that of the hall of the abbey of Great Malvern, the finest example that existed in this country, or probably in any other, was wantonly destroyed: it was a wooden ceiling, with an outer roof.

Bradenstoke Priory, or Clack Abbey, near Chippenham, in Wiltshire, is, or was, a fine example. The timber roofs of churches of this style are not generally so fine as those of halls. There are, however, many very good specimens of Decorated roofs remaining in churches, as at Adderbury, Oxfordshire, Raunds, Northamptonshire, and several others in that neighbourhood.

It should be observed that what are called open timber roofs are, very frequently, inner roofs or ceilings for ornament only, with a plain substantial outer roof over them, as at Sparsholt, Berkshire. These inner roofs or wooden ceilings, are sometimes of precisely the same form as stone vaults, which are, in fact, ceilings of another kind. The wooden vaults of Warmington and the cloisters of Lincoln have been already mentioned; those of the nave of York Minster and Winchester Cathedral are also of wood only. At Kiddington, Oxfordshire, is a good example of a Decorated timber-roof of an ordinary parish church. At Kidlington, in the same county, there is also a Decorated timber-roof to the south aisle of the nave.

Ceilings are very useful and often necessary, and the proper thing to be considered is how best to make them ornamental also, as they were formerly. The Puritan fashion of plain whitewashed plaster ceilings caused a natural prejudice against ceilings altogether, which has been carried too far. These were introduced in the seventeenth century, and continued during the ignorant and apathetic eighteenth, and first half of the nineteenth. In some instances these flat plaster ceilings entirely concealed the upper part of fine Decorated windows; this was notably the case in the fine church of Haseley, Oxfordshire; the plaster ceiling had there been introduced in the time of George the Third. This church was the first to be restored by the Oxford Architectural Society, and the first in which open-seats were restored in the diocese of Oxford.

The open timber-roofs of the Victorian Gothic architects, whether in what are miscalled restorations or in new churches, have quite a distinct character of their own, a general imitation of the time of Edward the First or Second; but no one with eyes in his head can mistake these for old work, although in some of the real restorations the work is so well done that inexperienced eyes are frequently deceived. In roofs and painted glass this is never the case; the English painted glass of the Decorated style is generally very good, with grey backgrounds, and bands of figures in colour, which are thus well seen; in modern glass, bright colours are put in the backgrounds, and destroy the effect of the figures. The roofs are also generally a bad imitation of the old work.

The Towers of the Decorated style are usually placed at the west end, and follow very much the same general appearance as in the Early English, but of course with the doorways, and windows, and other features characteristic of the style. The cornice is also generally richer, with a panelled battlement, and with gargoyles projecting from it at the corners, and pinnacles at the angles, as at Moulton, Northants, where the lower part of the pinnacles only remain. Sometimes there appears to have been a wooden spire, but this is by no means always the case.

The Spires of the Decorated style differ but slightly from those of the Early English, excepting that there are generally more of the spire-lights, small windows at the bases and on the sides of the spire, as at Wollaston and Ringstead, Northants.

The East Front of a church of this style most commonly consists of one large window at the end of the choir, flanked by tall buttresses, and a smaller one at the end of each aisle; the west front usually has the same arrangement, with the addition of a doorway, or doorways, under the central window, but there are frequently two narrow windows, with a buttress between them carrying a bell-cot, in small country churches of this style. The east ends of Carlisle and Selby, and the west end of Howden, are among the finest examples. On the Continent the large rose-window is almost always a principal feature of the west front; with us it is comparatively rare, and more often found in the transept ends than at the west end. The south fronts of Howden and Selby are also fine examples of the arrangement of the side of a large building of this style, with large windows both to the aisle and the clere-storey, separated by buttresses with pinnacles. The interior of the choir at Selby is one of the finest examples of the general effect of a Decorated interior, and on a smaller scale the choirs of Hull, and of Dorchester, Oxfordshire, are good examples. Lichfield Cathedral has the great advantage of having its three spires perfect, and on this account perhaps gives us the best idea of the effect intended to be produced by the exterior of a perfect church of this style: there can be no doubt that the same arrangement was contemplated in many other instances.

The lantern of Ely and the nave of York must not be omitted in this mention of some of the leading examples of the Decorated style, the general character of which is thus ably summed up by Mr. Rickman:—

“The General Appearance of Decorated buildings is at once simple and magnificent; simple from the small number of parts, and magnificent from the size of the windows, and the easy flow of the lines of tracery. In the interior of large buildings we find great breadth, and an enlargement of the clere-story windows, with a corresponding diminution of the triforium, which is now rather a part of the clere-storey opening than a distinct member of the division. The roofing, from the increased richness of the groining, becomes an object of more attention. On the whole, the nave of York, from the uncommon grandeur and simplicity of the design, is certainly the finest example; ornament is nowhere spared, yet there is a simplicity which is peculiarly pleasing.”

THE GRADUAL CHANGE FROM DECORATED TO PERPENDICULAR.

Richard II. and the latter part of Edward III.
From c. 1360 to 1399.

Having now traced the gradual development of Gothic architecture, from the rudest Romanesque to its perfection in the Decorated style, it only remains to trace its decline, which, though not equally gradual, was much more so than is commonly supposed. Up to the time of its perfection the progress appears to have been nearly simultaneous throughout the northern part of Europe, with some exceptions; but during the period of its decline, chiefly the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it assumed a different form in each country, so distinct one from the other as to require a different name, and to be fairly considered as a distinct style. To call the Perpendicular style of England by the same name as the Flamboyant style of France, Germany, and the Low Countries, can only cause needless confusion; and the received names for these styles are so expressive of their general character that it would not be easy to improve upon them.

The gradual change from the Decorated to the Perpendicular style has been less generally noticed than the earlier transitions; but though less apparent at first sight, it may be as clearly traced, and examples of it are almost equally numerous: they occur in most parts of the country, though more common in some districts than in others, especially in Norfolk.

Professor Willis has demonstrated that this change began to shew itself, in the choir and transepts of Gloucester Cathedral, before the middle of the fourteenth century. The panelling and the window tracery have so much the appearance of the Perpendicular style that they have been commonly supposed to have been rebuilt or altered at a late period; but the vaulting and the moldings are pure Decorated, and the painted glass of the fourteenth century is evidently made for the places which it occupies in the heads of the windows with Perpendicular tracery: it must therefore be considered as the earliest known example of this great change of style. In this work of alteration the walls and arches of the Norman church were not rebuilt, but cased with panelling over the inner surface, so as to give the effect of the latter style to the interior. This was just the same process as was afterwards followed at Winchester by William of Wykeham, in changing the Norman to the Perpendicular style in appearance without any actual rebuilding. The work was begun as early as 1337, and carried on for a number of years. The funds were procured by offerings at the tomb of King Edward II., who, as is well known, was buried in this church, the body having been removed from Berkeley Castle for that purpose by the Abbot Thokey. It has been ascertained by Archdeacon Freeman, at Exeter, by a careful comparison of the building with the fabric rolls, that the greater part of that fine Cathedral was also altered from the Norman to the Decorated style without rebuilding.

The Dean’s Cloister of Windsor with the buildings surrounding it was built between 1350 and 1356, as appears by the builder’s accounts still extant in the Public Record Office. The style is Perpendicular, but with Decorated moldings, or at least a mixture of them. The vault of the porch under the Ærary or treasury, and the doorway to it, are among the richest pieces of work of this period. It was originally the porch of the chapter-house of the Order of the Garter.

Sir G. G. Scott, in his “Gleanings from Westminster Abbey,” has also shewn that part of the cloisters, and some other work recorded to have been built by Abbot Litlington, 1362-1386, are in a style of transition, belonging rather to the Perpendicular than the Decorated.

The substructure of all the canonical residences running southward from the Deanery, (itself the Abbot’s house of old,) displays a range of vaulting of simple and elegant character, with here and there a window of the period still remaining to testify that the whole was completed, before the tasteless alterations of subsequent centuries destroyed the workmanship which they were as unable to appreciate as to imitate. Two archways still remain, in the length of this substructure, connecting Great Dean’s Yard with the courts to the eastward of it. They are of the style to which their known date would assign them; though perhaps a close consideration of their details (such as the cavetto and double ogee moldings) would lead to the conclusion that those characteristics, hitherto assigned to the fifteenth century, are here found in one of the earliest examples of their application.

The whole of Abbot Litlington’s work is in a style of transition between the Decorated and Perpendicular period; it is almost impossible to say to which of these received styles the moldings and details can be referred. As the divisions of the styles of Gothic Architecture are entirely arbitrary, arranged for general convenience, and for the use of beginners in the study, it is perfectly natural that this sort of mixture should take place for a certain period between each of the great changes. The latter part of the fourteenth century was the period when the Perpendicular style was coming into general use, but was not fully established: as the distinction is less marked than in the similar period between each of the other styles, it has been commonly overlooked, but the same overlapping of styles occurs at this period as in the similar transition between the others. This is more marked and prominent between the Norman and the Early English styles, and therefore that is commonly called the period of transition; but a similar period exists equally between each, a gradual change was always going on.

One of the earliest authenticated examples of this

transition is the church of Edington, Wiltshire, built by William de Edington, Bishop of Winchester: the first stone was laid in 1352, and the church was dedicated in 1361. It is a fine cruciform church, all of uniform character, and that character is neither Decorated nor Perpendicular, but a very remarkable mixture of the two styles throughout. The tracery of the windows looks at first sight like Decorated, but on looking more closely the introduction of Perpendicular features is very evident. The west doorway has the segmental arch common in Decorated work; over this is the usual square label of the Perpendicular, and under the arch is Perpendicular panelling over the heads of the two doors: the same curious mixture is observable in the moldings, and in all the details. This example is the more valuable from the circumstance that it was Bishop Edington who commenced the alteration of Winchester Cathedral into the Perpendicular style; he died in 1366, and the work was continued by William of Wykeham, who mentions in his will that Edington had finished the west end, with two windows on the north side and one on the south: the change in the character of the work is very distinctly marked. Bishop Edington’s work at Winchester was executed at a later period than that at Edington, and, as might be expected, the new idea is more fully developed; but on a comparison between the west window of Winchester and the east window of Edington, it will at once be seen that the principle of construction is the same; there is a central division carried up to the head of the window, and sub-arches springing from it on each side: it may be observed that whenever this arrangement of the sub-arches occurs in Decorated work, it is a sign that the work is late in the style. Before the death of Bishop Edington the great principles of the Perpendicular style were fully established. Those chiefly consist of the Perpendicular lines through the head of the window, and in covering the surface of the wall with panelling of the same kind. These features are as distinctly marked at Winchester as in any subsequent building, or as they well could be.

The next great work of Wykeham was New College Chapel, Oxford, certainly one of the earliest, perhaps the first, building erected from the foundations entirely in the Perpendicular style; and a finer specimen of the style does not exist. The first stone was laid in 1380, and it was dedicated in 1386. Winchester College, built immediately after New College, is of precisely the same character with it, as might have been expected: they are both excellent specimens for the study of the Perpendicular style. Another very remarkable and valuable example of the transition from Decorated to Perpendicular is the choir of York Minster, commenced by Archbishop John de Thoresby in 1361, and completed in 1408; the general appearance of this magnificent work is Perpendicular, but there is great mixture in all the details. The chancel of St. Mary’s Church at Warwick, rebuilt by Thomas Beauchamp, second Earl of Warwick, between 1370 and 1391, has more of the Perpendicular, being covered with panelling like Winchester, but the moldings are quite of mixed character. King’s Sutton Church, Northamptonshire, deserves notice as a specimen of this transition. In some instances, as at Charlton-on-Otmoor, the perpendicular line of the molding is carried on straight through the flowing lines of the tracery to the arch.

The nave and western transepts of Canterbury Cathedral were rebuilt between 1378 and 1411, but the Perpendicular style was then so fully established that there are scarcely any signs of transition. Chipping-Camden Church, Gloucestershire, was rebuilt by William Greville, a rich wool-stapler, who is buried in the chancel with his wife, and there is a fine brass to their memory; he died in 1401. This church is almost entirely of transitional character. The glorious chapter-house of Howden, and Gisburne Priory Church, in Yorkshire, are of this period, and very fine examples of early Perpendicular work. The roof and the casing of the walls of Westminster Hall belong also to the close of this century, 1397-99. The gatehouse of Thornton Abbey, Lincolnshire, is another splendid example of this transition. The cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral are decided Perpendicular in the fan-tracery of the vaults, but are partly of earlier date and character.

Houses and castles of the time of Richard II. are rather numerous and fine, and have frequently such a mixture of the Decorated and Perpendicular styles that it is difficult to say to which they belong. This is the case with a part of Warwick Castle, of Donnington Castle, Berkshire, Wardour Castle, Wiltshire, and Wressel Castle, Yorkshire; and Bolton Castle, in the more northern part of Yorkshire, is another fine example, and remarkably perfect. It is a very lofty and fine building, rather a fortified house than a castle intended for military purposes; there are two courts, and all the towers are perfect, or nearly so. It belongs to the time of Richard II. Dartington Hall, Devonshire, near Totnes, is another remarkable example of this period and character; it is a manor-house not fortified, with extensive farm-buildings attached to it. All the original windows are of four lights, with arches of the form called the shouldered-arch, which has been adopted in the modern Gothic front of Balliol College, Oxford. The original parts of the Vicar’s Close at Wells are of the same character and period; the remains of the Vicar’s Close at Lincoln are in part also of this character, one house is earlier, more decidedly Edwardian, and remarkably perfect. Most of these buildings are well known and have often been described, but are sometimes said to belong to the one style and sometimes to the other, this important transitional period having been very commonly overlooked.

The chancel of the fine church at Warwick is an excellent example of this change; it has sometimes been described as of the earlier style, and by other writers as of the later. The chapel on the south side of it, with the celebrated tomb of the Earl of Warwick, is an addition, and belongs to the later style.

THE PERPENDICULAR STYLE.

Richard II. to Henry VIII. A.D. 1377-1547.

Having thus taken a rapid historical survey of the introduction of the Perpendicular style, it should be mentioned that this style is exclusively English, it is never found on the Continent, and it has the advantage of being more economical in execution than the earlier styles. It remains to describe its characteristic features. The broad distinction of the Perpendicular style lies in the form of the tracery in the head of the windows; and in fully developed examples the distinction is sufficiently obvious. We have no longer the head of the window filled with the gracefully flowing lines of the Decorated tracery, but their place is supplied by the rigid lines of the mullions, which are carried through to the architrave moldings, the spaces between being frequently divided and subdivided by similar Perpendicular lines; so that Perpendicularity is so clearly the characteristic of these windows, that no other word could have been found which would at once so well express the predominating feature. The same character prevails throughout

the buildings of this period: the whole surface of a building, including its buttresses, parapets, basements, and every part of the flat surface, is frequently covered with panelling, in which the Perpendicular line clearly predominates; and to such an excess is this carried that the windows frequently appear to be only openings in the panel-work. This is equally apparent at the beginning, in the interior of the west end of Winchester Cathedral, and in the exterior of the Divinity School, Oxford, near the end of this style. The towers of Boston in Lincolnshire, and Evesham in Worcestershire, are also fine examples of exterior panelling. Panelling, indeed, now forms an important feature of the style; for though it was used in the earlier styles, it was not to the same extent, and was of very different character, the plain surfaces in those styles being relieved chiefly by diaper-work.

In the earlier or transitional examples we find, as has been mentioned, a mixture of the two styles. The general form of the tracery is frequently Decorated, but the lines of the mullions are carried through them, and perpendicular lines in various ways introduced. A very common form of transition is the changing of the flowing lines of a two-light Decorated window into a straight-sided figure by the introduction of perpendicular lines from the points of the sub-arches, as at Haseley, Oxfordshire. Sometimes we have Decorated moldings, with Perpendicular tracery, but frequently the features of both styles are intimately blended, and produce a very good effect.

This peculiarly English style is found far more convenient for domestic buildings than the earlier styles. There are a large number of palaces and houses of this style remaining, such as nearly all the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge; it can also be very well executed in brickwork. Some of the finest mediæval houses that we have remaining are of brick, and the tall brick chimneys of this style are both ornamental and convenient; they are usually built in the outer wall, and carried up above the level of the roof, and for this reason the fires made under such chimneys never smoke. Modern builders have greatly neglected this precaution, and the wind blowing over a high-pitched roof naturally descends on the other side, and carries the smoke down the chimney, instead of letting it float away freely with the wind.

No one who has seen the fine brick buildings of the time of Henry the Seventh can despise them. Eton College is almost entirely built of brick, excepting the chapel, which is faced with stone. In many districts the difference of expense between brick and stone is enormous. The old Romans were quite aware of this, and used brick far more than modern builders are willing to do, even for their imperial palaces and magnificent aqueducts.

The arches of this style are not usually so acute as in the earlier periods, and in the latter part of the style become very flat, but in the earlier portion they are similar to the previous style, as in the compartment of Fotheringhay. In this instance there is also a deep hollow molding, which looks at first sight like Decorated, and beginners in the study are frequently misled by this feature, but it is often continued for the first half of the Perpendicular period. The arch of the clere-storey window over the former is comparatively flat. The name of clere-storey is usually continued even when there is no triforium, or blind-storey, as it is called by William of Worcester, writing in the fifteenth century. The French have adopted the English name of clear-storey, with the old spelling [as clèrestorie]: it is therefore more expedient to observe it, but for beginners it may perhaps be necessary to explain that clere is the old spelling of ‘clear.’ The different forms of the two arches of the windows of the aisle and of the clere-storey in this dated example, prove that the form of the arch is never a safe guide to the date of a building; to fix a date, various details have often to be considered.

It is not always easy to distinguish at first sight the arch over a tomb of early Perpendicular from one in the Decorated style, as at Waterperry, Oxon. Here the battlement on the top of the wall at the back, and the plate-armour of the knight, and the crockets on the ogee arch, are more like the Decorated style.

The capitals and bases of columns in this style can generally be distinguished by the shallowness of the moldings, sometimes panelling is introduced; one of this kind, with the base stilted and molded, is in the Lady-chapel at Winchester. Foliage, if used, is generally shallow, and not so good as in the Decorated.

The columns themselves are frequently so much like those of the Decorated style, especially in plain parish churches, that they can hardly be distinguished excepting by the moldings on the capitals and bases, if there are any, but there are no bases in many instances. At Fotheringhay, which is a particularly valuable example as having a given date for all parts of it, the columns, pillars, or piers, for they are called by all three names, have a great resemblance to the Decorated style.

The Windows of New College and the ante-chapel of Merton College, Oxford, afford perhaps as fine examples as are to be found of early and perfect Perpendicular. They are both what is called sub-arcuated, but in New College the window is of four lights, and the sub-arches rise from the centre mullion; while in Merton, which is of three lights, the mullions are carried up to the architrave, and the side lights only are sub-arcuated. Both these forms are very frequent. In many later examples these sub-arches are entirely disused, and all the mullions are carried through the transom; this is the case at New College; but it was afterwards used to excess, so as greatly to injure the effect of the windows.

In the later examples the arches of the windows are

much lower than they were in the earlier period, and the four-centred arch, which began now to be extensively used, was gradually depressed, until all beauty of proportion was lost, the arches being little more than two straight lines rounded at the angle of junction with the jambs. These late windows had frequently great width in proportion to their height, as at Haseley, and were placed so near together, that the strength of the building entirely depended on the buttresses.

A little later in the style, one of the best examples that is anywhere to be found is the Presbytery at York, in which the windows are very large and divided into five lights; in the central division the mullions are carried straight through the arch, and two horizontal transoms are introduced, which is a very unusual arrangement; there are also transoms across the side lights on each side, and there are two of them.

These windows having all been originally filled with painted glass, we have rarely an opportunity of judging of the proper effect of them; the glare of light which we now complain of having been caused by the destruction of that material, which was intended to soften and partially to exclude it. The church of Fairford, in Gloucestershire, affords a rare instance of the painted glass having been preserved in all the windows, and the effect is solemn and calm—very far from glaring; and it is remarkable that they impede the light so little that a book may be read in any part of the church, which is seldom the case with modern painted glass. The clere-storeys also are frequently almost a sheet of glass merely divided by lighter or heavier mullions, thus offering a complete contrast to the small and distant openings so frequently found in Early English and Decorated work. Square-headed, segmental, and other flat-arched windows, are frequent in this style. In rich churches there is sometimes a double plane of tracery, the one glazed, the other not. In the choir of York the inner one is glazed. The east window of the nave of Chipping-Norton Church, Oxfordshire, over the chancel-arch, is a fine specimen of this kind of window: in this instance the outer plane is glazed.

The Doorways are frequently very rich, but have generally one prevailing form, which is a depressed arch within a square frame, and over this a label.

Fine examples of panelled wooden doors of this style are also met with occasionally, as in the church of S. Crux, at York. The priest’s door, on the south side of the chancel, is often an insertion of a later period than the building, and is of this style, although the walls may be Early English or Decorated.

The label-molding is frequently filled with foliage, and the space round the arch panelled; the jambs ornamented with shafts, and the spandrels filled with shields and foliage.

It has been mentioned that the old wooden door, with the original iron-work, frequently remains; a good instance of this occurs at Beckley Church, Oxon, which has the usual square-head and dripstone over it, with the dripstone terminations which are heads, probably, of the donors. This door is protected by a porch, and in the corner next the door is the niche for a stoup of holy-water, with which the people sprinkled themselves as they went into the church. This place for the stoup is frequently found just inside the door, instead of outside. The iron-work of this style is not so good as that of the Early English or Decorated, but still it is often very good, and is frequently preserved; it has the advantage of not requiring a porch to protect it, but was originally painted or gilt in some instances.

The west doorway of the church of Fotheringhay is a very good example of this style, with the well-molded square head over it, the molded arch with shafts in the jambs and shields, and foliated circles in the spandrels.

The Towers in this style are frequently extremely rich and elaborately ornamented, having four or five storeys of large windows with rich canopies, pinnacles, and tabernacles; double buttresses at the angles, and rich deep open parapets, with pinnacles and crocketed turrets at the corners, having small flying or hanging pinnacles attached. These very gorgeous towers are chiefly found in Somersetshire, as at Wrington, Taunton, Brislington, Dundry, &c. There are, however, few which, for beauty of proportion and chasteness of composition, can rival that of Magdalen College, Oxford. In that example the lower storeys are extremely plain, all the ornament being reserved for the belfry-windows, the parapet, and pinnacles; by this judicious arrangement the eye takes in the whole subject at once, thus giving to it a solemnity and a repose which are not attained by the more gorgeous specimens before referred to. This tower was originally intended to stand alone, as a campanile, or belfry-tower; the buildings which have been erected on two sides of it are of a subsequent period. At the time it was building, Wolsey, afterwards the celebrated Cardinal and Prime Minister of Henry VIII., was a Fellow of this College, and held the office of Bursar; tradition gives him the credit of the design, there is no better authority for this, but it is probably true he was a great builder.

The light and elegant style of vaulting known as fan-tracery[F], which is peculiar to this style, with its delicate pendants and lace-like ornaments, harmonizes finely with the elaborate ornament of the tabernacle-work below.

The Porches are in general very fine, and highly enriched with panel-work, buttresses, and pinnacles; open parapets, windows, and tabernacles with figures, flanking the window or the outer arch, and in the interior sometimes a richly-groined vault. Very fine examples of these porches are found in Norfolk, Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Dorsetshire.

There are frequently very good porches of this style of a more ordinary kind in the parish churches, with a stone vault, as at the west end of Woodstock, Oxon. This church had been partly rebuilt in the Georgian era, in the style of that period, on the side next the street; but at the back and at the end, where it is out of sight, the old work has been preserved in the complete restoration of this church in the time of Queen Victoria.

In later examples we find ornament used to such an excess as completely to overpower the usual characteristic features of the building; no large space is left on which the eye can rest, but every portion is occupied with panelling or other ornament.

An example of this may be seen in the exterior of Henry the Seventh’s Chapel, which has more the appearance of a piece of wood-carving than of a building of stone; but in the interior of the same building this very richness has a wonderfully fine effect.

The Moldings of this style differ much from the preceding ones. They are in general more shallow; that is, they have more breadth and less depth than the earlier ones. Those in most use are a wide and shallow molding, used in the jambs of windows and doorways, as in Haseley, No. 1; a shallow ogee; a round, or boutell; a fillet, a kind of hollow quarter-round, and a double ogee, as in Haseley, No. 2. The wide molding of cornices is sometimes filled up at intervals with large pateræ, which replace the four-leaved flower and the ball-flower of the Decorated style; or with heads, grotesque figures, or animals and foliage. These are frequently inferior both in conception and execution, to the earlier styles.

There is an ornament which was introduced in this style, and which is very characteristic. This is called the “Tudor-flower,” not because it was introduced in the time of the Tudors, but because it was so much used at that period. It generally consists of some modification of the fleur-de-lis, alternately with a small