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It is covered with a profusion of ball-flower ornament, which, except in the south nave aisle of Gloucester Cathedral, is nowhere else so freely used. Photochrom Co., Ld., Photo.
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.
At either end of the two tiers an ornament not unlike the ball-flower of the Decorated style is carried up the jamb, and a bold corbel-table runs up the sides of the gable, under the apex of which there is a trefoil panel, while the whole is crowned by an elaborate cross.
The pier at the eastern side of the easternmost of these consists of the semi-cylindrical respond of Norman date, a piece of masonry which was part of the west wall of the Norman church; and then on the western side of this an added semi-cylinder, on the capitals of which may be seen the ball-flower ornament.
The effigy of the bishop has been lost, and in its place, which is now shown, is an unknown figure which was found buried in the cloisters. In the mouldings of the arched canopy the ball-flower ornament is again in evidence, and behind the tomb a carving of the crucifixion is still visible, though nearly obliterated by the chisel of the Puritans.
We miss the crockets and finials, the ball-flower, and other ornaments that we meet with in so many fourteenth-century buildings; but the very simplicity of the work gives the church a dignity that is often wanting in more highly ornamented structures.
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