Sometimes
we meet with ancient brass reading-desks which have not the eagle in
front, but both the sides are sloped so as to form a double desk: of
these, examples of the fifteenth century may be found in Yeovil Church,
Somersetshire, and in the chapel of Merton College, Oxford. Ancient wooden
reading-desks, either single or double, are also occasionally found; some
of these are richly carved, others are comparatively plain, but all
partake more or less of the architectonic style of the age in which they
were severally constructed, and from which their probable dates may be
ascertained. In Bury Church, Huntingdonshire, is a wooden desk with a
single slope, and the vertical face presented in front is covered with
arches and other carved ornaments: this perhaps may be referable to the
latter part of the fourteenth century. A rich double desk, of somewhat
later date, with the shaft supported by buttresses of open-work tracery,
is preserved in Ramsey Church, Huntingdonshire. In Aldbury Church,
Hertfordshire, is an ancient double lecturn or reading desk, of wood, of
the fifteenth century, much plainer in design than those at Bury and
Ramsey; the shaft is angular, with small buttresses at the angles, and
with a plain angular-shaped moulded capital and base, which latter is set
on a cross-tree.
Pages:
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127