The wooden roof is a good example of
the kind.
Q. What district is noted for the number of rich churches in this style?
[Illustration: St. Stephen's Church, Bristol.]
A. Somersetshire contains a number of fine churches, erected apparently
towards the close of the fifteenth or very early in the sixteenth
century; and many of these churches have much of carved woodwork in
screens, rood-lofts, pulpits, and in pewing. The towers are, in
particular, remarkable for their general style of design, and are often
divided into stages by bands of quatrefoils; the sides are more or less
ornamented with projecting canopied niches for statuary, and in many of
these niches the statues have been preserved from the iconoclastic zeal
which has elsewhere prevailed. The belfry windows are partly pierced,
sometimes in quatrefoils, and partly filled with sunk panel-work. The
parapets, whether embattled or straight-sided, are pierced with open work;
and at each angle of the tower, at which buttresses are disposed
rectangular-wise, is finished with a crocketed pinnacle, which is also
often to be met with rising from the middle of the parapet. Towers similar
in general design to those which may be said to prevail in Somersetshire
are not unfrequently met with in other counties, but do not exhibit that
provincialism which is the case in that particular county.
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