Although no ancient high altar of stone is known to exist, some of the ancient chantry altars have been preserved: these are composed either of a solid mass of masonry, covered with a thick slab or table of stone, as in the north aisle of Bengeworth Church, near Evesham, and in the south aisle of Enstone Church, Oxfordshire; or of a thick stone slab or table, with a cross at each angle and in the centre, supported merely on brackets or trusses built into and projecting from the wall, as in a chantry chapel in Warmington Church, Warwickshire; or partly on brackets and partly sustained on shafts or slender piers, as in a chantry chapel, Chipping-Norton Church, Oxfordshire. Sometimes a chamber containing a fire-place was constructed over a chantry, apparently for the residence, either occasional or permanent, of a priest: such a chamber occurs over the chantry chapel containing the altar in Chipping-Norton Church; and such also, with the exception of the flooring, which has decayed or been removed, may be seen in the chantry chapel which contains the altar in Warmington Church. In both of these chambers are windows or apertures in the walls which divide them from the church, through which the priest was enabled to observe unseen any thing passing within the church. [Illustration: Chantry Altar, Warmington Church, Warwickshire] We often find an opening or aperture obliquely disposed, carried through the thickness of the wall at the north-east angle of the south, and the south-east angle of the north aisle: this was the _hagioscope_, through which at high mass the elevation of the host at the high altar, and other ceremonies, might be viewed from the chantry chapel situate at the east end of each aisle. In general, these apertures are mere narrow oblong slits; sometimes, however, they partake of a more ornamental character, as in a chantry chapel on the south side of Irthlingborough Church, Northamptonshire, where the head of an aperture of this kind is arched, cinquefoiled within, and finished above with an embattled moulding. In the north and south transepts of Minster Lovel Church, Oxfordshire, are oblique openings, arched-headed and foliated; and in the north aisle of Chipping-Norton Church, in the same county, is a singular hagioscope, obliquely disposed, not unlike a square-headed window of three foliated arched lights, with a quatrefoil beneath each light. We sometimes meet with one or more brackets, with plain mouldings or sculptured, projecting from the east wall of a chancel aisle or chantry chapel; and on these, lamps or lights were formerly set, and kept continually burning in honour of the Virgin or of some other saint; and we also meet with rich projecting canopies or recessed niches, with brackets beneath, on which images of saints were formerly placed.