church in 1639; these are
square-headed, and have a label or hood moulding over, and are mostly
divided into three obtusely pointed-arched lights, without foliations.
Under the windows of the south aisle is a string-course, more of a
semi-classic contour than Gothic. On the south side is a plain
round-headed doorway, inserted at the same period. The tower and south
aisle of Yarnton Church, Oxfordshire, erected by Sir Thomas Spencer, A. D.
1611, have the same kind of square-headed window, with arched lights
without foliations, as those of Stow. Stanton-Harold Church,
Leicestershire, erected A. D. 1653, is perhaps the latest complete specimen
of the Debased Gothic style. Towards the end of this century Gothic
mouldings appear not to have been understood, as in the attempt to
reconstruct portions of churches in that style we find mouldings of
classic art to prevail. Such is the case with respect to the tower of
Eynesbury Church, St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire, rebuilt in a kind of
Debased Gothic and mixed Roman style, in 1687. Other instances of the
kind might also be enumerated. At the commencement of the eighteenth
century the Roman or Italian mode appears to have prevailed generally in
the churches then erected, without any admixture even of the Debased
Gothic style.

[Illustration: Window, Ladbrook Church, Warwickshire.]

[Illustration: Stoup, South Door, Oakham Church, Rutlandshire.]

CONCLUDING CHAPTER.

ON THE INTERNAL ARRANGEMENT AND DECORATIONS OF A CHURCH.

The churches of this country were anciently so constructed as to display,
in their internal arrangement, certain appendages designed with
architectonic skill, and adapted purposely for the celebration of mass and
other religious offices.

At the Reformation, when the ritual was changed and many of the
formularies of the church of Rome were discarded, some of such appendages
were destroyed; whilst others, though suffered to exist, more or less in a
mutilated condition, were no longer appropriated to the particular uses
for which they had been originally designed.

On entering a church through the porch on the north or south side, or at
the west end, we sometimes perceive on the right hand side of the door, at
a convenient height from the ground, often beneath a niche, and partly
projecting from the wall, a stone basin: this was the _stoup_, or
receptacle for holy water, called also the _aspersorium_, into which each
individual dipped his finger an