A B C of Gothic Architecture

216 THE rERPEXEICULAH STYLE.
quasi-roodloft at each end of the nave. There is no
doubt that this custom prevailed in many other counties
also, but the western loft has generally been
destroyed in
consequence
of the barbarous custom of
blocking up
the tower-arch, vrhich is often the finest
feature in the church. The roodloft-galleriesseem
to have been used for choristers to stand
upon ; the
lessons were also read from them. They are sometimes
very large,extending over the eastern bay of the nave
and occasionallyover the western bay of the chancel also,
as
may
be seen by the remains of the staircases for them.
The Eedcliffe Church, Bristol,the west front and
south porch of Gloucester Cathedral,and part
of the
choir of St. Alban's Abbey Church, with the tomb
of Abbot "Wheathampstead, are also of this period, and
good specimens of the style. Within the next twenty
years we have a crowd of examples, which it is not
necessary to enumerate.
But a few more specimens of the later periodof this
style can hardly be passed over,
such as St. George's
Chapel, "Windsor, King's College Chapel,
Cambridge,
and Henry the Seventh's Chapel, Westminster; and
of
the
very latest before the change of style, Bath
Abbey Church, the Savoy Chapel, in the Strand,
London, with its very beautiful panelled ceiling, and
Whiston Church, IS'orthants.