The Levrington window has five lancets, and its Tree of Jesse is larger and has more figures than the one at Margaretting; it shows the marks of careful restoration. Including the figures in the tracery lights, there are sixty in all--an unusually large number. Each figure is placed within a loop of the deep orange-coloured vine, these enclosures being about 12 by 8 inches. This great company of personages, and the agreeable harmony of colour, make this window well worth a visit.
Lowick Church does not have to rely alone upon its stained glass, but has many other attractions, such as its fine tombs, elaborately carved pew-heads, wooden ceiling, and last, but not least pleasing, the venerable prayer-books, dated 1724 and still in their original bindings, ornamented by coloured coats of arms on the covers. There are some heraldic panes along the south side of the chancel, but the chief interest for us is in the very fine series of sixteen personages originally forming a Decorated Tree of Jesse, but now stationed along the upper lights on the north side of the nave. The drawing is good and the colouring strong, with as yet no trace of stain, the frequent touches of yellow being of pot-metal glass. The four most westerly figures are kings, and the eastmost is a knight in full armour, his head, arms and legs being covered with chain-mail. In his hands he holds a model of the church, upon which can be distinctly seen these windows, thus clearly indicating that he was the donor.
There are few cathedrals in the world which, as one approaches, reveal themselves more charmingly than does Lichfield; here one feels an almost studied coquetry, disclosing new beauties at each stage of our advance. When viewed from a distance the three graceful spires, "The Ladies of the Vale," seem to beckon one on to a nearer view of the sanctuary over which they preside. On entering the town it is temporarily lost from view, only promptly to appear again, this time across the little pools which lie along the south side of the Close and which, aided by the green of the trees, provide so lovely a foreground and setting for the full-length picture of the great edifice. Again we lose it, and then the last revelation of all comes when one rounds the corner into the green Close and there bursts upon you the final and complete aspect of the glorious west front, brilliant in its red sandstone, adorned by its army of over 150 stone figures of prophets, saints, and English kings, a splendid façade, impressively culminated by the towering spires that first signalled to us where we should find this lovely picture. Unfortunately for the cathedral, Bishop de Langdon, Treasurer of England under Edward I., by surrounding the Close with a wall and a fosse, made of it a stout fortress. Centuries after this very feature resulted most disastrously, for, during the Civil Wars, the military strength of its position caused it to sustain three successive sieges. Of these the first was the most disastrous, for, when the Roundheads broke in after a three days' assault, they revenged the death of their leader, Lord Brooke, first upon the Royalist defenders, and next upon the cathedral itself, wrecking and destroying ancient tombs, stalls, &c., and, of course, the old glass. In addition to their work of destruction they carried off all that had been left by Henry VIII.'s Commissioners of the rich offerings brought by devout pilgrims to the shrine of St. Chad. To this same Lord Brooke Sir Walter Scott pays his respects in the lines telling how Lord Marmion's body was brought