with a free use of marbles and sculpture. The west façade presents, in its lowest stage, an exceedingly ornate double door, with marble shafts, bassi-relievi in the tympanum, and a frieze, representing the Procession of Palms, across the façade,-so arranged that our LORD'S figure occupies the triangle in the pediment of the portal. Above, there are two windows of two lights, with foliated circles in each head, divided by a buttress. Above again, there is a band of pedimental arcading at the base of the gable. Turrets, with elaborate square pinnacles, of an early type, flank the façade. The baptistery, at the west end of the south aisle, is gabled transversely, and ranges with the west front. The east elevation shows the apse-of unusual height-windowed in two stages; the lower range being couplets of broad lancets, and the upper range large lancets. There is great enrichment in the details of this composition, panels of bassi-relievi being introduced into the buttresses. The south side displays the equal height of the nave and chancel roofs, and the clerestory, which consists of four windows, each of two unfoliated lights, with a sexfoiled circle in the head. The impression, however, left by this part of the design is too much that of merely inserted panels. The windows and the wall of the clerestory do not seem to form part of one conception. Turrets and pinnacles, like those of the west end, occur also at the east angles of the nave, and serve to break the uniformity of the line of roof between the nave and the chancel. On the north side, the quasi-transept is seen to have two transverse gables, each having a large window, but of different composition. The tower is of unusual height. It rises, without much ornament except what it has from its construction, to the height of the crest of the nave-roof; then there is a very rich and well-designed open belfry-stage, (though we should have preferred a single range of lights to the two ranges which Mr. Pearson has introduced,) and above there is a lofty octagonal broached spire, with angle-turrets, and spire-lights on the cardinal faces, all capped pyramidally, and enriched with bands. The specialty of the church is its groined roof. Nave, chancel, and aisles are all vaulted; and this feature gives this fine design unusual importance. The nave. piers are massy and cylindrical, with early flowered capitals. They carry massy arches, of two orders. The triforium stage is not pierced, but affords a series of panels, which are, hereafter, to be frescoed, or otherwise decorated. Vaulting shafts, rising from corbels on a horizontal string, divide the triforium into panels. The vaulting, which is simple quadripartite, rises from capitals at the level of the base of the clerestory windows. In the chancel, the triforium stage is pierced with an open arcade, that part of it which surrounds the projecting apse having the lower range of windows, already mentioned in our notice of the exterior. The bay of the chancel proper is divided from its aisles by a couple of narrow arches-the usual treatment (but not, we think, the most satisfactory treatment) of this part of a church. The walls of the sanctuary are to be ornamented with large scenes, painted in fresco; and the altar, surmounted by a reredos designed like a baldachin, is treated with great dignity and beauty. But of these highly artistic enrichments it will be impossible to speak fully until they are finished. We have seldom had a more important design

-or one more thoroughly satisfactory-than this before us, and we shall watch its completion with great interest. We should not omit to mention that the schools and parsonage-house in connection with this church will make the whole group one of singular merit and beauty.

S. Paul, Maidstone.-This new church, by Messrs. Peck and Stephens which has very recently been consecrated, is in many respects noticeable as a type of the most modern idea of ecclesiastical architecture. Any very soigné exhibition of ritual composition was not, we believe, to be expected, from various circumstances. But on the other hand its builders, a few generous persons who gave largely, were anxious for a good result. So the building, which is Middle-Pointed, consists of a clerestoried nave of five bays with aisles, and a chancel. The aisles, according to the most modern improvement, are gabled in every bay, but like most aisles of their sort, they are not successful, from the gabling being merely treated with reference to external effect, breaking out of the horizontal lean-to, and awkwardly interrupting the rafter roofing. All old gabled aisles were built with reference to vaulting or coved roofs. The combination of octagonal shafts with square abaci and Corinthianising capitals, has been tried in the arcade, but we cannot deem it a felicitous developement. The clerestory consists in every bay of a broad, short, traceried light. The chancel arch springs from corbels representing angels. The east window, of five lights, is prepared for painted glass. The chancel is choked with three rows of longitudinal sittings on each side. To the north is a shallow recess for the organ, and beyond it the vestry. The prayer-desk, on the south of the central line, stands under the chancel arch, looking due west, and is exactly balanced to the north by the stone pulpit, which would have been of a very fair design,-low, circular, panelled, and relieved with marble shafts,—if it had stood against the angle of the chancel arch; as it is, it looks in its isolated position as if it had been drawn out and left. The seats are open and uniform. The font, which is properly placed, has serpentine shafts. There is a south porch, and the ground story of the steeple, which exactly occupies the area of the south bay of the north aisle, serves as a vestibule on that side. The steeple will rise to a height of 140 feet, but will be too thin for the mass. The roof, of red and dark tiles striped, produces with the ragstone walls a polychromatic effect. There is another church, by Mr. Bulmer, just completed in another part of Maidstone, which we were not able to see.

S. Andrew, Singapore.—We learn from the Lord Bishop of Labuan that the government is building a Pointed cruciform aisled church of large dimensions (about 170 feet long and 70 high) in this important city, the design being imitated from Netley Abbey. How far the necessities of the climate are provided for we cannot tell. A threatened settlement has arrested the central tower at a height of about 100 feet. It is to be hoped and expected that this church may become the cathedral of the Eastern Archipelago.

59

NEW SCHOOLS, &c.

Little Wolston, Bucks.-Mr. White is about to build a school and schoolmaster's-house for this parish. The schoolroom is to be 29 ft. 4 in. in length, by 14 ft. 6 in. in breadth, with a class-room about 10 ft. by 12 ft., opening into it at right angles. The material is red brick, with courses of buff and grey, and the roofs are tiled. The design is good. The gable window has (rather ugly) wooden tracery, and the bell-cote, for one bell, perhaps wants height.

Walton Rectory, Bucks.-Mr. White has added to this house a new drawing-room, with bed-room and dressing-room over it, and a new porch, besides rebuilding the offices. The additions are very well managed, and the staircase is a very ingenious piece of woodwork. We observe also a small conservatory, very well designed.

Nostell Parsonage, Yorkshire.-A very good house, in Early Pointed, by Mr. St. Aubyn. Not the worst feature in it is the avoidance of needless eccentricity and irregularity. The arrangement of the groundplan is convenient; though, as usual, the "study" is too small.

STAINED GLASS.

S. James, Louth, Lincolnshire.-The east window of this church-an immense Third-Pointed composition, of seven lights, transomed and super-monialled-is about to be filled with stained glass by Messrs. Clayton and Bell. The subjects are groups from our LORD's life, very beautifully designed. In the lower range there is the Crucifixion, in the middle, between the Washing of S. Peter's Feet, the Agony, and the Betrayal, on the dexter side-and the Judgment before Caiaphas, the Denial of S. Peter, and the Ecce Homo, on the sinister. In the upper range the Ascension occupies the middle light; and the other subjects are the Anointing of our LORD's Feet and the Incredulity of S. Thomas (the latter subject occupying two lights) on one side; and the Transfiguration and the Charge to S. Peter (this divided into two lights) on the other. The smaller lights of the super-monialled head are filled with small figures of saints. The design and colouring of this window seem equally good.

Messrs. Clayton and Bell have in hand a large painting for the space above the chancel-arch in the church of S. Salterhebble, Yorkshire. The scene represented is the Ascension. In the middle, over the crown of the arch, is the figure of our LORD, robed in white, with outstretched arms, in a pointed aureole. On each side is an angel; and below, divided into groups, are the Virgin Mother and the Apostles. The design is very effective, though rather more archaic in character than we should have ex ected.

CHURCH RESTORATIONS.

S. Mary, Widford, Essex.-This small church, containing chancel, nave, north chapel, and south-west porch, is about to be enlarged and thoroughly restored by Mr. St. Aubyn. A north aisle is to be added to the nave, and a sacristy, with organ-chamber over it, to the chancel ; and a tower and spire is to be built at the west end. The new arrangements are excellent: the chancel is raised on three steps, and the sanctuary on two more, besides the footpace. There are stalls and subsellæ; sanctuary rails, but no screen; and sedilia and piscina. The style is a good Geometrical Middle-Pointed, ably treated. The tower has a good belfry-stage, with large, deeply-splayed, and richly-moulded and shafted windows, filled with luffer-boards. The spire is an octagonal broach, with spire-lights on the cardinal faces. On the north side, a small octagonal turret, with octagonal roof, forms the staircase to the organ-chamber. The interior arcade is of five arches, with piers alternately shafted and cylindrical. The chancel-arch has piers composed of three slender shafts of coloured marble. There are also shafts of coloured marble to the responds throughout the church, and to the ingeniously-treated traceried arch between the organ-chamber and the chancel. This is a restoration that almost attains to the dignity of an entirely new church; and Mr. St. Aubyn has performed his task extremely well.

S. Andrew, Fontmell, Dorsetshire.-A new chancel, with a spacious sacristy on its north-west side, is about to be added to this church by Messrs. Evans and Pullan, of Wimborne, in place of a wretched structure of the last century. This chancel will have stalls on each side, but no subsellæ. There is an original high screen which is retained, and the pulpit, which is on the north side of the chancel-arch, is entered by steps in the wall from the sacristy. The rest of the church being in a somewhat enriched Perpendicular Third-Pointed, the architects have chosen the same style for the added chancel. We cannot wholly condemn this, though we think they would have exercised a wiser discretion had they chosen a better and somewhat earlier style for the new work. The new chancel, with its rather over-ornate roof, lacks simplicity. We do not much like the flat roof of the new sacristy, in spite of the pierced cornice and the angle-chimney, which in themselves are well managed, A new roof, rather heavy, with collars and hammer-beams, is added to the nave; that in the chancel being much simpler, with mere arched braces. A priest's door, occupying the middle one of the three small bays into which the chancel is divided, seems scarcely necessary.

8. James, Claydon, Oxfordshire, has been almost rebuilt by Mr. White. It was not found possible to preserve more than the tower and the arcades of the old church. The walls have been rebuilt, with new windows, and new roofs. The walling has been executed in the local red sandstone, with the dressings in Hornton and Bath stone. The original plan comprised nave and chancel, of the same height and

breadth, a western tower, and a northern chantry or aisle, which neither reaches the east wall of the chancel nor the west wall of the nave. The new windows of the nave and chancel are of simple but good MiddlePointed design. The new aisle is in First-Pointed, with an unequal triplet of lancets for the east window, a couplet at the west end, and two single lancets—which are the only windows on the north side of the church-in its north wall. The tower is an unpretending ThirdPointed structure, without western door, and roofed with a gable, the axis of which coincides with that of the church. There is no constructional chancel arch, but the distinction between the two parts of the church is marked by an arrangement of the truss of the roof in that part. The nave and chancel roofs are tiled, while the chantry has Stonesfield slates. The internal arrangements are new and good. The pavements are relaid with the old flags, relieved by encaustic tiles. There are quasi-stalls in the chancel with subsellæ; a reading-desk on the north side being rather too prominently distinguished from the other seats. The woodwork is simple but good. Triple sedilia, under an arcade of trefoiled arches, are inserted in the south wall of the sanctuary. They are very well proportioned, and the shafts are of slate. The pulpit is of stone, of two colours, and of very successful design, with a metal desk.

S. Michael, Walton, Bucks.-In this little church Mr. White has completed the entire renovation of the chancel with new oak fittings, stone sedilia, hangings (instead of reredos) on the east wall, a new vestry, a new pavement of Minton's plain tiles laid with partial use of the old flags, a new oak pulpit and lettern, and a new organ (by Willis) with its fingerboard ranging with the stalls. The stalls have subsellæ; and the western one, on each side, has a more prominent desk than the rest. There are rails to the sanctuary, without gates. The organ is placed in a recess, which has been added to the north wall of the chancel. This is a very good, though unpretending, restoration.

S. Gereon, Cologne.-In our article on Continental Progress in our last number we forgot to notice M. Ramboux's careful restoration of the baptistery of this church, a detached chapel entered from the south of the nave. The work comprises painted glass, mural and roof painting, and rich pavements. The rest of S. Gereon is in statu quo, We may observe that the Majesty over the west door with the open book carrying yw ein Oúpa, which Mr. Webb supposed to be in mosaic, is only painted, and not older we should fancy than the sixteenth or seventeenth century.