ve the canopies of the niches are made of plaster
designed by Bernasconi, who also restored other parts of the screen.

The central archway is unusually rich and delicate for the period in
which it was built. It is somewhat obtuse in form, and is surmounted by
an ogee pediment or outer moulding. On each side are four narrow shafts
with carved capitals, an unusual enrichment in this period. Between
those shafts are rosettes and rows of foliage. The bases, both of the
shafts, the pedestals, and the buttresses, are very long, as is usual in
late Perpendicular work. The arch itself has four divisions of
ornamented mouldings, with plain mouldings between them. The ogee
moulding is richly decorated with foliage, and terminates in a lofty
finial reaching to the top of the screen. Below this finial is an empty
niche with a kind of ball-flower ornament at the base. On each side of
this niche is an angel with a censer, with rich foliage below. The
interior of the screen under the central arch is vaulted with carved
bosses. The niches are divided from each other by buttresses decorated
at intervals with pinnacles. The pedestals are long, and richly
ornamented with tabernacle work. The greater part of the ornament of the
screen is massed in the canopies. These canopies are made up of three
inner arches, cusped, immediately above the heads of the kings, and five
outer arches, cusped and gabled, round them. Round these outer arches is
a mass of pinnacles, with three larger, richly-ornamented pinnacles, and
two smaller, above them. Above these are three small figures, apparently
playing on musical instruments, with other figures of the same size, one
on each side of the buttresses. These figures, in their turn, have above
them canopies of much the same character as those below. Above these
canopies is a row of panelling with the plaster angels of Bernasconi
above it, at the beginning of the cornice. The rest of the cornice is
made up of a row of sculptured ornament and a row of cusped arches
terminating in the "Tudor flower" ornament, alternating with rows of
plain moulding.

[Illustration: The Choir Screen.]

The chief fault of this screen is its heaviness, which the mass of
ornament is not bold enough in its parts to lighten. The central
entrance is not cleverly managed, and seems cut out of the screen, as if
to make a way into the choir at all costs. This screen should be
compared to the beautiful rood screen at Exeter, with its