et, London.

[Illustration: Hour-glass Frame, Shawell Church, Isle of Wight.]

To the close of the sixteenth century the mode of pewing with open
low-backed seats continued to prevail; the ends of these seats were not
covered with tracery or arched panel-work, but were plain, though they
sometimes terminated with a finial. In the nave of Stanton St. John
Church, Oxfordshire, are some old open pews or seats, apparently of the
reign of Henry the Eighth, the backs of which are divided diamond-wise,
and form a kind of lattice-work, and the ends terminate in grotesque
heads. In Harrington Church, Worcestershire, are some open seats of plain
workmanship, bearing the date of 1582. The church of Sunningwell,
Berkshire, is fitted up with a range of open seats on each side of the
nave, without any ornament, with the exception of a large carved finial at
the end of each seat. In Cowley Church, near Oxford, are open seats of the
date of 1632, which have at the ends finials carved in the shallow angular
designs of that period. All these seats are appropriately placed, or
disposed facing the east, and none are turned with the backs towards the
altar[230-*]. About the commencement of the seventeenth century our
churches began to be disfigured by the introduction of high pews, an
innovation which did not escape censure; for, as Weaver observes, "Many
monuments of the dead in churches in and about this citie of London, as
also in some places in the countrey, are covered with seates or pewes,
made high and easie for the parishioners to sit or sleepe in; a fashion of
no long continuance, and worthy of reformation[231-*]." The high pews set
up in the early part of this century are easily distinguished by the flat
and shallow carved scroll and arabesque work with which the sides and
doors are covered. In the directions given on the primary visitation of
Wren, bishop of Norwich, A. D. 1636, we find an order "that the chancels
and alleys in the church be not encroached upon by building of seats; and
if any be so built, the same to be removed and taken away; and that no
pews be made over high, so that they which be in them cannot be seen how
they behave themselves, or the prospect of the church or chancel be
hindered; and therefore that all pews which within do much exceed a yard
in height be taken down near to that scantling, unless the bishop by his
own inspection, or by the view of some special commissioner, shall
otherwise allow."

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