NANTWICH

The Nantwich stalls can be dated ten or twenty years later than those of Chester. In the general design of the canopies they show a marked superiority to Chester, but in execution are decidedly inferior, as might be expected in a building which was a chapel of ease as compared with one of the great abbeys. The planning is unusual. Instead of the return stalls being at right-angles to the sides they are placed against the great piers of the central tower with happy effect. They are bound in at the west by a low stone screen, to which is attached a beautiful Perpendicular stone pulpit; the steps belonging to it are placed to come down on the chancel side of the screen against the first stall-end. As the building was parochial there was no stone pulpitum shutting away the chancel from the nave, and the rood screen arrangements here are obscure.

The stalls are twenty in number, eight on each side and four return stalls which are wider than the rest on plan. The canopy design differs considerably from Chester. Instead of one canopied niche in the upper part flanked by flat pierced tracery windows, there are three niches, the bases coming down directly on to the head of the lower canopy, reducing the two-story idea to a minimum. The oriel window projecting from the flat panelled back disappears, the niche bases of six-sided form with pierced tracery taking their place with rich effect.

The lower canopy resembles Chester in general outline, but the outer bowing ogee is omitted, and the pinnacled corner buttresses are of two stories, having a gable with crockets half-way up in place of the brattishing at Chester, to their improvement. There is no indication of canopy standards, and the front great buttress is omitted, only the back one being retained to mark the division of each canopy.

The three upper niches, the centre one towering above the other two, are capped by canopies having three little crocketed gablets with tall pinnacles at the corners rising well above the gables, and the bowing ogees are omitted. The pierced traceried backs of the niches are untransomed, giving a finer line and adding to the apparent height and dignity of the design. The absence of the spirelet is not appreciably felt, owing to the added height of the central niche.

Whereas the Chester stall-work shows considerable traces of the early fourteenth century, Nantwich comes under the well-developed Perpendicular influence. The design of the Nantwich canopies touches the high-water mark of the tabernacled varieties which have survived to the present day. The total height of the stalls from the raised floor to the top of the centre canopy is 14 feet 3 inches; from the floor to the canopies 8 feet. The canopies project 22 inches, and the vaults are cut out of a solid block of oak. The gilt bosses are of metal affixed to the woodwork. The panelled backs are of similar type to Chester. The upper part is filled with applied tracery forming an ogee arch, and subdivided into a centre panel with a lesser panel on either side by two small half shafts, with caps and bases, from which part of the vaulting springs filling the underside of the lower canopies. The bases rest on small corbels carved with a variety of figure subjects. The tracery is a little later in type than Chester, and more thoroughly Perpendicular in character. The panelling measures 28 inches from centre to centre, and the return stalls 35 inches. The height from the capping of the seating to the capping of the half pillar is 3 feet 11 inches.

The stall seating is similar to Chester, the capping is 4 inches in thickness, and the moulding has an added member in the centre. The little caps into