ALTAR. The "exceeding long and fair altare stone de vario marmore, hoc est, nigro albis maculis distincto at the high altare" which Leland saw, has totally disappeared; it probably came from the "faire quarre of blak marble spottid with white, in the very ripe of Tees," which he mentions as being "about a quarter of a mile beneth Egleston [Priory]." There is nothing peculiar about the present arrangements. The two altar-books are inscribed "Darlington Altar. J. H. S." on a good old binding which on one side of each book only has unluckily been supplanted by a new one of very inferior execution, with I. H. S. on, for show. Within is an Indian-ink drawing of a boy, pointing to a representation of one of the books inscribed "This Book and its companion were the gift of Mr. John Cade, A.D. MDCCLXXI. For the use of the Altar in Darlington Church. S[amuel] W[ilkinson] Delin."

ARCHES. The tower rests on four superb obtuse arches of rectangular mouldings. They rise from clustered piers, of which the main pillars are of a pointed section, and each of them is furnished with two sub-pillars enclosed in rectangular formations. A large square block intervenes between the inner mouldings of the arch and the abacus. Some of the capitals are flowered, others moulded only, and both capitals and piers have been sorely cut and built upon, partly in the fourteenth century when the roodloft was constructed, and partly in later days. The S. W. cluster from which four arches spring in various directions, is still perfect and has a noble effect. Above these tower arches are four others opening into the roofs. Before the ceilings hid the latter they would appear to have been visible from below, and formed a sort of lantern, and must have had a very singular effect; they are plain chamfered. Each aisle opens into a transept by a single arch of fine detail. The Nave arches are curious. The three Westernmost are very wide and obtuse, of three orders chamfered, while the Easternmost is much narrower, of fine proportion and elegant mouldings. The same alteration takes place in the piers. Those under the plain arches are simple cylindrical and octagonal alternately, with corresponding responds at the W., but the more ornamented arch rests on a clustered respond and a beautiful pier, composed of four cylindrical and filleted shafts separated by pear shaped or pointed bowtells. Nevertheless they are coeval, for the clerestory does not alter, and one of the plainer arches partly rests upon the clustered pier. Owing to the settlement at the West end, the end arch is nearly circular, but throughout the church the prevailing feature of the whole of the architecture is endless variety and irregularity, though the general character is so admirably preserved that there is not the slightest appearance of incongruity.

ARCH-BUTTRESSES. These are some masses of masonry inserted in the angles of the cross plan to support the tower. They cut off the angle and are supported by arches high above the ground, interrupting the plain early English strips which preceded them.

AUMBRIES. Small closets for various purposes. There is one in the Newel staircase at the S. W. corner of the S. transept, near the summit. It runs three feet into the thickness of the wall, and is wider than the entrance splay in the wall leading to it, which occupies 1 ft. 8 in. of the 3 feet.

BASE-TABLE. In the original work of the transepts and chancel, this is a simple slope into which the flat buttresses die.

BATTLEMENT. The South Aisle has a plain decorated parapet, and the vestry a debased one, the other parts of the church are furnished with battlements, which are all of comparatively late date.

BRASSES, SEPULCHRAL. Within the altar rails the mark of a figure and iuscription on a veined marble slab. The like near the North stalls in the choir. Marks of two inscriptions in the North transept, on an enormous blue slab (which with the rest of this transept is elevated) bevelled at the S. edge. Next to it a slab with the mark of a chalice and inscription; this style of brass is excessively rare in England, and the perfect one at Leeds is perhaps unique. It no doubt covered a chantry priest. Close to the North wall of this transept a slab which appears to have contained two full length figures canopied, with kneeling figures round, the matrix of one remains on a corner. Near the font the mark of an inscription. The like in South aisle just within the door. The like in the pavement of the destroyed South porch, in which also are the marks of two figures, inscription, and four corner pieces.

BUTTRESSES. In the early English parts these are of very small projection, much resembling Norman ones. At the corners they form turret-like buildings of square form. The decorated buttresses are very irregular and more for use than show. See ARCH

BUTTRESS.

CAPITALS. All fine. In the window and arcade shafts they are generally moulded with fine deep undercut members, but they also occur with the nailhead ornament inserted, and the crisp foliage of the period. The abacus is mostly round and overhangs in a very graceful manner, but in many instances (as in the pier capitals) it is of a square Norman character. In the South transepts the foliage introduced is of peculiar beauty. The pier capitals partially follow the form of the pier, but are in many instances square, and are only foliated in some instances. The unusual form of an Early English hexagonal capital occurs on several shafts in the North transept.

CHAMFER, an arch moulding exceedingly abundant. In the North transept it springs in one instance from a fleur-de-lis ornament intervening between it and the capital of the supporting shaft.

CHANTRIES. The North transept (see BRASSES) has evidently been a chantry, probably that of All Saints, as I have observed that foundations to our lady are more usually on the Southern side of churches.

COFFIN. A stone coffin dismantled of its lid lies near the choir door. Part of a coffinlid with cross flory was dug up in the churchyard a year or two ago but was suffered to be

destroyed. The early stone in Barningham churchyard, Yorks., of which I present a cut

seems to be a coffinlid, and of Saxon date. It is nearly covered with grass and soil, but seems about three and a half or four inches thick. The coffinlids thus decorated served as monumental slabs, but in the Saxon period a sort of high dos dane monument appears to have been used, of which examples occur at Bedale.

CORBEL-TABLES remain under the later battlements in the Nave and transepts, consisting of small blocks simply moulded and supporting the parapet.

CROSS. There is no vestige of one, but there [ are the remains of two fine Saxon ones at

[Details of Saxon tomb in Bedale Church, which has a tiled roof as below.]

Aycliffe, five miles off, which are supposed to commemorate the two synods held there in 782 and 789. There are remains of the usual churchyard cross of Saxon date at Hauxwell, near Richmond, and at Bedale. Since writing p. 81, Ifind that as early as about 1313 the Walworths had family transactions respecting one rood on le Crosflat. See cuts over.

[Part of Cross at Bedale.]

DOORWAYS. The Choir door is a plain square chamfered one in a buttress-like projection. The West door is grand in its simplicity. It is situate in a triangular headed projection of the wall. The capitals of three shafts (which have evidently been stolen for the marble) at each side alone remain, they support rectangular sets of deeply undercut roll mouldings, within which is a continuous bead moulding, sadly cut, to accommodate itself to a modern door. The North and South doors have chamfered mouldings and two shafts at each side; the latter has had a porch, but the former is placed in a projection which has a short piece of moulding at each side above the doorway. The outer door of the destroyed South porch was obtuse pointed, and is shown in Cade's print.

DRIPSTONES generally run on in a string. Those of the Tower arches rest on shafts, and are adorned with an ornament like a nutmeg pared down to an hexagonal form. In the arcades of the South transept a cruciform flower, animals and human heads occur; the

latter are modern, being moulded partly from the physiognomy of a drunken man, and have nevertheless a good effect and a much more sensible expression than would be expected. The North door has moulded terminations, the South, rosettes. The decorated windows have masques.

0.JEWITT S

[Crosses at Aycliffe. See p. 215.]

EFFIGY. There is but one monumental figure, of which I give a cut, (see next p.) but it must be nearly coeval with the fabric, being a female in the dress of the twelfth cent., holding a book (?) and supported by an angel. A fibula appears beneath the neck and an an aulmoniere is suspended from the girdle. Altogether the figure is much like that of Richard I's. queen, Berengaria. It now stands upright in the church near the Western door.

FONT. Plainish circular shaft, on two steps of the same form; the basin is octagonal lined with lead. It is coeval with the building, but is painted over. The fine late perpendicular cover (perhaps as late as Cosin's time) is also painted to imitate the material of which it is constructed-oak!

GALILEE. See p. 46. The Glossary of Architecture says that "in some churches there are indications of the West end of the Nave having been parted off from the rest, either by a step in the floor, a division in the architecture, or some other line of demarcation: it was considered to be somewhat less sacred than the other portions of the building." At present the West bay only of our Nave is screened off as a porch, but this is quite a modern arrangement, and the screen was further eastward some few years ago. I am not even quite sure that the change of architecture at the commencement of the Easternmost arch of the Nave is without its meaning, for in Middleham church the mark of a screen of considerable height across the whole church at the same point is distinctly visible. MATERIAL. "A hard grit-stone little injured by time." Cade. "The expence of the fabric before us was immense; for the stone of which it is built, according to the opinion of judicious workmen, was brought above twelve miles, from the quarries of Cockfield-fell." -Hutchinson.

1 food
[Cross at Hauxwell. See p. 215.]

NEWELL-STAIRCASES. One at the S. W. of the South transept in a turret which changes from a square to an octagon. At the top this turret has small quatrefoil windows, and lower down plain slits; it has a door into the churchyard and formerly had another into the church; the staircase continues to the top of the turret, but at present is only used to attain the flat ceiling of the transept on which there is a passage beneath the old roof to the upper arches of the tower, which form the sides of a chamber for the bellringers. There is another newell-staircase in the roodloft. NICHES. A trefoiled one above the S. door, another at its W. side, and a third above the W. door, apparently for images.

PINNACLES. Those on the tower are modern, but at each side of the Western gable is an early example, with small pannels terminating in an octagonal spiret. At the summit of that on the S. is a mutilated sitting figure.

PISCINA. In the East wall. The masonry is mainly original, but the blundering label and shields (one of which is charged with a mullet in bad imitation of Ingleby's estoile) are modern and of wood. There are two cinquefoiled recesses, the S. one has a basin divided into two parts, the North one runs deeper into the wall and is plain, having probably answered as a credence table. The two basins are apparently for the two uses of the piscina, the washing of the priest's hands and the rinsing of the chalice.

ROODLOFT. The Darlington example is perhaps unique. It is a massive stone gallery or platform, the whole width of the great chancel arch, some 13 feet in height and 7 in depth, having a wide ribbed archway in its centre, leading from the nave to the chancel. This arch is ribbed precisely like a bridge arch, and the whole now presents a bald effect but it appears that formerly it was ornamented heraldically, as Cade, in "Hell-Kettles" (which, since writing p. 36, I have found from a letter to Mr. Allan about offering it to Miss Darnton, was his production), laments "the destruction of the arms of benefactors to the fabric, cut in stone, and properly blazoned over the entrance into the quire, by a late reformer." The images of the rood were in allusion to St. John, xix. 26, "Christ on the cross saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing by." The sound of a door remains on tapping at the North end, and a portion of a winding staircase is still used as an access to the organ on the South. In the two blocked windows of the choir next to the choir arch are the remains of two small Decorated windows, (the South one with a trefoiled head, the North one having a cinquefoiled head and cinquefoiled transom) which served to throw light upon the Roodloft, which is also of Decorated date.

Roors. Against the first piers from the West, on both sides of the Nave, there are clear evidences of the plan of vault adopted in the Aisles, consisting of portions of chamfered ribs, and in the North Aisle opposite these remains, an elegantly moulded corbel remains on the wall on which the ribbing fell. In the Nave where the two architectures join, a triply-shafted pillaret runs up the wall to the string beneath the clerestory, which latter part of the building has been so modernized as to leave no clue to what the shaft supported. Whatever was the contour of the Early English roofs, they have only left their moulding on the tower walls above the present line of leading, being supplanted by Decorated oaken roofs of five cants, there being no tie-beam or king-post. These remain in the Nave and Transepts,but are hidden by a modern plain pannelled ceiling, which extends to the Tower. The choir has a flattish Tudor roof as well as the Vestry. My own impression is, that the original roofs were vaulted arches, corresponding in shape and altitude to the upper arches of the tower, that the passage to the tower was from the newel staircase through the space between that arch and the apex of the weather moulding; and that the weight of these roofs being blamed for the settlement in the fourteenth century, they were replaced by the canted ones which are of the later style of cant. It is remarkable that at one side only of the weather mouldings there is a hitch; that of the South transept is shewn in my plate. SEDILIA. Three in gradation ascending to the East, consisting of trefoiled ogee arches: the compartments formed between the heads and the square outer moulding are also foiled, and contain shields, only one of which is charged and contains the estoile of Ingleby. The original depth of these seats cannot be ascertained, as the safe behind has interfered with thein. The Sedilia were seats for the officials during certain parts of the mass. SEPULCHRE. The Easter Sepulchre (at which were transacted some strange theatrical mysteries at Easter: see the Rites of Durham, &c.) consists of a Tudor-arched recess in the North wall of the Chancel under a square head embattled; the spandrils formed by which are filled in with foliage, on which a colouring of green may still be dimly traced. SPIRE. This feature of the church is part of the original design and is octagonal, each face being eight feet broad at the base At the angles are bold undercut bowtells, and some distance up, on the four cardinal fronts, are small trefoil lights with transoms of Decorated date. The height is 108 feet, 180 feet from the ground. It is supported partly on the main walls of the tower and partly on squinches in the corners.

On July 17, 1750, this beautiful spire, considered the highest and finest in the North of England, was rent and shaken from top to bottom. On the N. W. side of it, about three yards below the top, the stones were thrown quite out, so as to lay the inside open for a space near ten yards; between which break and the bottom were several others, but none quite so large the church also was much hurt and damaged. Several houses in the town were much shattered and laid open in many places; some people were likewise struck down with the sulphureous blast, and lay senseless for several minutes, but none were killed. This storm occasioned fifteen yards of the spire to be taken down and rebuilt in 1752, and divine service could not be performed until the spire was taken down and the churcli repaired. The agreement with Robert Nelson of Melsonby, stone-cutter, and Robert Corney of Coatham, carpenter, stipulates that the spire should be rebuilt the same height as before, and that the fifteen yards required to be done accordingly should be performed for 1057. Unfortunately the mason omitted the moulding at the angles in the new part, and thus deprived it of much beauty. It is a coincidence that the only two spires of considerable elevation in the county, Chester and Darlington, should both have the same rhyme connected with them (p. 125), and have required rebuilding from the same cause.

STALLS. On each side of the choir are good panelled desks and miserere seats with carved elbows, fine florid. "Their oak bench ends, full five inches thick," says Billings, “are the most massive specimens we have ever met with. Their numerous edge mouldings would seem rather to belong to a large archway." The arms of Cardinal Langley fix them to a date about 1430, and the same insignia occur on the more numerous but less massive stalls at St. Andrews Auckland, at which church, and at Lanchester, the bishop had the first stall on the S. side; the dean the first on the N., and at Durham the prior sat on the N. side in like manner. We may presume the same arrangement was followed at Darlington. The North stalls are imperfect, three of them having been demolished to make room for a great ugly pew at no distant period. There ought to be nine at each side, two being against the Roodloft. The desks and stands are handsomely panelled with bold tracery and the elbows and poppyheads are full of beautiful foliage, quiet angels, and comical heads with lolling tongues. The designs of the misereres, beginning at the W. stall of the N. set are these: 1, a little man with laced boots gathering or supporting flowers; 2, a lion's head; 3, the little man asleep, his boots unlaced; 4, a winged and clawed morster with a human head; 5, (Easternmost of S. side) a human head; 6, an eagle (a device which occurs in other parts); 7, an angel and open book; 8, a winged monster having a lion's body and eagle's head; 9, our said little man with one boot laced, the other unlaced, having a chain round the neck of a clawed monster whose leonic physiognomy seems to be smiling with amusement at the fierce strokes the little man gives with a ragged staff on his head (there is evidently a legend connected with this little man]; 10, a human head; 11, a crowned figure with two sceptres [whose face is much like that of the small man] between two griffins sejant gorged. This would be the bishop's seat. Five misereres are wanting besides those of the destroyed stalls. On the backs of some of the stalls are cuttings by the knives of some idle officials, "W," "Maria," in black letter, &c.

STEEPLE. A massy central tower of which the transept sides are two feet shorter than those of the Nave and chancel.

STRINGS. These occur in great abundance and of varied mouldings. One on the W. wall of the S. Transept terminates in an elegant rosette, and there is a very effective one