Volume II 1603-1660 - The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

X XX INTRODUCTION.
if our windows were never decorated with stained glass except when
the coats of arms of distinguished fellows or of the royal patrons were
set up by the glazier. Payments for setting up these various coats
of arms in the windows of the church are scattered through the
accounts. Above the present decorated ceiling is a high pitched
oaken roof, rising about twelve to fifteen feet from the chalk of
which the ceiling is composed. In the gables at the east and west
end of each aisle is a small window some five feet high now used as
a louvre for lighting and ventilating the roof. These windows light
the upper part of the church. They are immediately over the long
windows in the east, over the arches of the aisles in the west, and
under the oaken beams which support the crown of the roof of each
aisle. They are entirely hidden from view in the interior by the
ceiling ; but the eastern windows are visible from the master's garden
and the western may be seen from Inner Temple Lane. The iron
p. 232 work of " the little windows of the east end of the top of the church "
was repaired in 1636-7 at a cost to the two inns of 30s. 4d. Those
at the west were allowed to go to decay.'
The remains of antient mural decoration existing so recently as
1834 suggest that the church was, in the seventeenth century, painted
and decorated throughout, although even at that date the early
paintings must have been much dilapidated under the combined
influences of age and neglect. The polishing of the marble columns
seems to indicate that the pillars had not then been plastered or
whitewashed and the iron grates about the monuments would seem to
show that they were at that time collected together on the floor of the
church. The candles at the side were fixed in sconces on the walls,
P. 53 while the centres of the two parts of the church were lighted, one by a
double lantern which was lowered and raised by a pulley and a rope
I). 54 and the other by the great brass candlestick which hung from the
p. 58 roof. A lanthorn also hung in the church porch and one in the
P. 44 door leading to Parson's court. Others hung in the cloisters.
The church, having been thus put into substantial repair by the
two societies, has never since then been allowed to fall back into
a state of decay. Many modifications have been made in the
internal arrangements, much bad taste has from time to time been
permitted to range over the structure, and the changes in the estab-
I See account of the Temple Church by R. IV. Billings. London, 1838. 4to. p. 45.