of Gothic prevalent in the fourteenth century.
Below the battlements of the tower there are shields, but the details have
almost entirely weathered away. The reticulated windows of the church
belong to the same period. They are very fine examples of the work of that
time. The north aisle, the chancel, and probably the north window of the
north transept also belong to this period, so that work of an extensive
nature must have been progressing on the church as well as the castle at
the same time. The walls of the nave and chancel appear to have been
raised in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and this would be
shortly before the remarkable series of wall paintings came into
existence. The date of these pictures can be brought down to fairly narrow
limits, for the arms carried by the four knights who are shown about to
murder St Thomas a Becket belong to the years between 1450 and 1460,
according to Mr J.G. Waller. The Rev. G.H. Lightfoot, a former vicar of
Pickering, mentions[1] the discovery of traces of earlier paintings of
superior execution when the present ones were being restored, but of these
indications no sign is now visible.

[Footnote 1: Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 1895.]

[Illustration: One of the Wall Paintings in Pickering Church.

St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers with the Infant Christ on
his shoulder. The saint is shown treading upon the serpent and grasping
his staff, which is growing at the edge of the stream.

[The copyright is reserved by Dr John L. Kirk]

When the church was re-opened after the restoration in 1879, the walls of
the nave were covered with a thick coat of yellow wash, but there were
many living who remembered the accidental discovery of the strange
pictures that were for a time exposed to the wondering gaze of the
congregation. The distraction caused by this novelty led to the coat of
yellow wash that undoubtedly did infinite harm to the paintings. At the
subsequent restoration, which was carried out by degrees as the necessary
funds were forthcoming, it was found that portions of some of the figures
had perished, and it is a most regrettable fact that the restoration
included the painting in of certain missing parts whose details could only
be supplied by analogy. From Mr Lightfoot's description it seems that in
the large picture of St George and the Dragon a considerable part of the
St George's body was missing; that the representation of Herod's Feast a