THE DOUBLE HAMMERBEAM NAVE ROOF  This, the chief glory of the church, was added at the close of the fifteenth century, its details easier to see following the recent cleaning. It is best to see the roof after dark, using only the new up-lighting. Fine carved wooden figures are seated under canopies in the wall posts, and although Dowsing ordered `off with their heads', several hold objects which identify them. The iconoclast called them `twelve apostles in stone', probably because they were then lime-washed. Along the north side there are initials of those who gave money towards the new clerestory and roof: John and Katherine Hall, and William their son, dyers, Henry and Isabel Tylmaker, brickmakers, and John Bryd the elder, thatcher. Opposite there are no initials, only symbols of the Passion of Our Lord: ladder, spear, nails, crown of thorns, dice, scourging pillar, and so on. Two hundred years later the then minister, Cave Beck, with Devereux Edgar, of Grimstone House in Tower Street and the Red House, devised an elaborate tribute to William and Mary. The late l7th century baroque painting on the plaster and panels of the roof is probably local work. Three of the fifty panels at the east end are painted on the lath and plaster of the ceiling, as are the ten sky panels along the centre, on which clouds and stars can be made out. The whole display is symmetrical across the nave, so that all but two panels are duplicated. The text Honour all Men. Love the Brotherhood. Feare God. Honour ye King.' on four panels is from 1 Peter 2.17. The centre panels between them bear the Arms of England and Scotland (North side) and France and Ireland (South side) and these deserve close study. On the south, there is a WM monogram for the joint monarchs and the surrounding putti are festive. Opposite the mood changes, for we know that the panels were put up over the Christmas and New Year of 1694-5. Queen Mary died of smallpox on that 28 Decemberand the north panel has sad putti taking a crown off the altar, the orb is rolling on the ground and the olive branch is drooping. This is a memorial tribute to a popular queen. To round things off in 1700, Beck and Edgar placed shields with the arms of Christchurch, Red House and other notable families to cover the beam ends where formerly angels were fixed; spot one modern replacement. The shields were all pierced with iron tie-rods added in 1803 to prevent the spreading of the nave walls under the weight of the roof.