more details of these picturesque mediæval days can do so with very little
trouble, but from the extracts that I have made, a general idea of the
class of information contained in the Duchy Records may be obtained. In
this period many additions and alterations were made to Pickering church.
The Transitional Norman tower was largely rebuilt, and the spire was added
in the Decorated style of Gothic prevalent in the fourteenth century.
Below the battlements of the tower there are shields, but the details have
almost entirely weathered away. The reticulated windows of the church
belong to the same period. They are very fine examples of the work of that
time. The north aisle, the chancel, and probably the north window of the
north transept also belong to this period, so that work of an extensive
nature must have been progressing on the church as well as the castle at
the same time. The walls of the nave and chancel appear to have been
raised in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and this would be
shortly before the remarkable series of wall paintings came into
existence. The date of these pictures can be brought down to fairly narrow
limits, for the arms carried by the four knights who are shown about to
murder St Thomas à Becket belong to the years between 1450 and 1460,
according to Mr J.G. Waller. The Rev. G.H. Lightfoot, a former vicar of
Pickering, mentions[1] the discovery of traces of earlier paintings of
superior execution when the present ones were being restored, but of these
indications no sign is now visible.

[Footnote 1: Yorkshire Archæological Journal, 1895.]

[Illustration: One of the Wall Paintings in Pickering Church.

St Christopher, the patron saint of travellers with the Infant Christ on
his shoulder. The saint is shown treading upon the serpent and grasping
his staff, which is growing at the edge of the stream.