PROCEEDINGS OF THE SOMERSETSHIRE ARCHEOLOGICAL AND 1854, PART II. PAPERS, ETC. Che Perpendicular of Somerset compared with that of East-Anglia. BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN, M.A. A DISCOURSE on the architecture of Norfolk may possibly at first sight be regarded as a subject not altogether appropriate to be brought before a Somersetshire society. Yet I trust that a little consideration will show that, in the aspect from which I mean to consider it, it forms an essential portion of the subject which I have brought before you from time to time ever since the commencement of my connexion with your body. My object has been to illustrate the peculiarities of Somersetshire architecture, especially during the Perpendicular age, and in no way can I so vividly show you in what those peculiarities consist, as by contrasting your local style with that of some other district. Now the architecture of EastAnglia is at once sufficiently like and sufficiently unlike 1854, PART II. that of Somersetshire, to afford an admirable field for a comparison of this kind. I could not well compare your churches with those of Sussex, which I visited last year, because utter diversity precludes all comparison. I hope to use to more advantage the results of my last archæological ramble, because the buildings of the two districts, among immense diversity of detail, present a considerable general resemblance. I took the opportunity of the Meeting of the Archæological Institute at Cambridge, to see as much as time would allow me of the architecture of the eastern part of England. I went without stopping to Wisbeach, and thence to Lynn, in excursions from which places I examined several of the magnificent churches of the district lying between them, known as Marshland. I thence proceeded, chiefly along the line of the railway, to Swaffham, East Dereham, Hingham, Wymondham, and Norwich. From Norwich I went straight to Cambridge, whence the excursions of the Institute enabled me to examine Bury St. Edmunds and Saffron Walden. It will thus be seen that though I have been to several distant points, I am very far from having traversed the whole extent of the old East-English kingdom; and I regret that some of the finest objects, as Cromer and Cley and Snettisham and Worstead and Yarmouth, did not come within my reach. The last mentioned place was sacrificed to a longer examination of the innumerable buildings of Norwich, so happily rescued by a wise House of Commons from the destruction which then threatened them from another quarter. I have however been far enough to see many very splendid churches, and to observe many points of difference from what I have been used to in your county. Possibly the examination of a greater number might have revealed a more extensive list of diversities; possibly, on the other hand, it might have shown me that some of those which I have remarked are less universal than I have imagined. I shall of course, in comparing the architecture of the two districts, confine myself chiefly to the really great architectural works of both, those in which the peculiar characteristics of each display themselves on the grandest scale and to the greatest advantage. And I am bound to state that a first-rate East-Anglian church, though I think decidedly inferior in point of detail to a first-rate Somersetshire one, is fully equal to it in general grandeur, and very frequently surpasses it in size. And I must add too that I have found an East-Saxon church, very near the East-Anglian border, to which, for splendour of internal effect and for beauty of detail, I must give precedence over every Somersetshire building I know, except, of course, the unapproachable glory of St. Mary Redcliffe. I have diligently compared the internal elevations of Martock and of Saffron Walden, and I am constrained to yield the palm to the latter. If it be any comfort to a Somersetshire audience, I can add that, in external outline and in the forms of the windows, the Somersetshire example has a no less decided advantage. I ought however to mention that the district of Marshland, that in which the churches are most remarkable for size and splendour, belongs both physically and architecturally to Lincolnshire rather than to Norfolk, and is not especially rich in examples of the local Perpendicular. The island of East-Anglia, for such it originally was to all practical purposes, can certainly boast of no Cotswolds or Mendips, yet it is far from being a dead flat. Marshland, on the other hand, the district west of the Ouse, reminded |