CHAPTER III
CANOPIED STALLS
It is probable that all the back stalls of monastic and collegiate churches had originally some form of canopy. For this there was a very practical reason, in the desire of the occupants of the stalls to have their tonsured heads protected from down draughts, which from open triforium chambers imperfectly tiled must often have been excessive. A great number of these canopies have been destroyed, usually in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, to make room for galleries, e.g., at Wells in 1590 and 1690, and Hexham in 1740.[1] In Belgium not a single set of stalls retains canopies. When the galleries were removed in modern restorations, the ancient forms of canopy were frequently not replaced, but something of modern design was put up. This should be borne in mind in examining the cresting of the stalls as it is at present; much of it is not original either in material or design.
The following is a list approximately in chronological order of some of the finest sets of stalls in cathedral, monastic, collegiate and parochial churches.
Rochester Cathedral 1227
Winchester Cathedral 1305
Chichester Cathedral 1335
Ely Cathedral begun in 1338
Lancaster Church 1340
Gloucester Cathedral 1350
Lincoln Minster 1370
Abergavenny 1380
Hereford Cathedral 1380
Hereford All Saints 1380
Chester Cathedral 1390
Nantwich 1390
Stowlangtoft 1400
Wingfield, Suffolk 1415
Higham Ferrers 1415
Norwich Cathedral 1420
Carlisle Cathedral 1433
Sherborne Abbey 1436
Hereford St Peter 1450
St David's 1470
Windsor 1480
Ripon 1500
Manchester 1508
Westminster 1509
Christchurch 1515
Bristol 1520
Dunblane 1520
Beverley Minster 1520
Newark 1525
King's College, Cambridge 1533, 1633, 1676
Aberdeen 1520
Cartmel 1620
Brancepeth 1630
Durham Cathedral 1665
Bishop Auckland Chapel 1665
Sherburn Hospital, Durham 1665
Sedgefield 1680
St Paul's Cathedral 1697
Canterbury Cathedral 1704
- ↑ Views of galleried choirs may be seen in Britton's Cathedral Antiquities; Norwich, ii. 13, Oxford, ii. 10.
