Gents Mag 1849 part 1 p.255

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	Gentleman's Magazine 1849 part 1 p.255 As it now stands, the plan of this church consists of a tower; nave, with north and south aisles; a sacristy or vestry taken off the west end of the south aisle; a south porch; a chancel with north and south aisles, that on the south being loftier and wider than the northern aisle; and a chancel door. Viewed on the exterior it presents an embattled square tower, about sixty feet in height, supported by diagonal buttresses at the north-west and south-west angles, of three stages each, which die away into the walls about half-way up the tower. On the north and south side, beneath the battlements, are two rude stone water-spouts. At the south-west corner is the stair turret, which rises a few feet above the roof, and is likewise surmounted with battlements. In this angle a spiral stone staircase, lighted by slits, winds to the leaden roof, from whose lofty summit start into view - A thousand beauties at one charming sight! No pencil's art can such a landscape feign, And Nature's self scarce yields the like again; the whole forming a picture replete in every direction with attractions of unequalled beauty. The belfry carries a set of six sweet-toned bells, hung up about seventy years ago, whose harmonious carillons, "the most exhilirating and the most affecting of all measured sounds" on a calm Sabbath morn, break upon the air of the romantic vale with a melody that was ever listened to with a holy pleasure by the late Laureate, to whom it spoke of an immortality brighter by far than that of Fame. On the western front of the tower, about midway from the ground, is a large window of four lights, whose four upright mullions and embattled transom assign its date to the latter period of the Perpendicular or Tudor style, and on each side of the story above is a small stone-mullioned, circular-headed, belfry window of three lights. A handsome south porch, too elaborate, indeed, for the style of the church, occupies the site of the old one. It is built of hammer-dressed dark grey stone, with dressings of reddish-coloured sandstone at the quoins and buttresses, and round the doorway. The gable is terminated by a handsome floriated cross, and the high-pitched roof is supoorted by four small buttresses of one stage each, that rise from plain bases at the corners on each side of the portal, and die under the eaves' courses. The doorway has small clustered columns, from which spring a pointed arch of many mouldings, surmounted by a hood moulding, resting on carved heads. The roof is open to the framing, and the inner doorway has a plain Tudor arch devoid on any ornament. There is likewise a small chancel door, having a flat top and sides, supported by a quarter circle from each side of the jamb, and on the right-hand, outside, is a small niche and mutilated stoup. The doors are all of oak, studded with nail-heads, and have large scroll hinges, or ornamental character and ancient design. The church is 47 yards long, and exteriorly consists on the south side of two bays, separated by three graduating buttresses, each of several unequal stages, which all die into the wall below the parapet, one at each end, and one near the centre of the flank wall. In the first bay from the west is the porch, and in the second is the chancel door. The windows of the aisle on this side are six in number, and are all of the same size and form, being of three stone-mullioned, semi-circular-headed lights, each under square-headed frames. At the west end of the south aisle of the nave, under an upright, square-headed frame, is an ogee-arched stone-mullioned, two-light, trefoiled window. At the west end of the north aisle, in the re-entering angle formed by the north wall of the tower and the west wall of that aisle, is a plain narrow buttress of one stage only. On the north side are three buttresses of similar form and dimensions to those on the south. They support the flank wall of the north aisle of the chancel only, and, dividing it into two nearly equal-sized bays, die into the wall below the eave course of the roof. On the north side of the north aisles there are eight stone-mullioned windows, set within square-headed frames; three, in the north aisle of the nave, being of two lights each, with trefoiled heads under ogee arches; two, of two lights each, with cinquefoiled heads, under lancet arches; one
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	gazetteer links
	-- (ring of bells, Great Crosthwaite)
	-- St Kentigern's Church

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