St Mary the Virgin, Lytchett Matravers
St Mary the Virgin is the Church of England parish church of Lytchett Matravers in Dorset. Its parish is part of the Diocese of Salisbury. The building is Grade I listed.
St Mary the Virgin, Lytchett Matravers
Brass monument installed about 1475 in memory of Rev. Thomas Pethyn or Talpathyn
Perpendicular Gothic font, made about 1500
A hagioscope or squint is an architectural term denoting a small splayed opening or tunnel at seated eye-level, through an internal masonry dividing wall of a church in an oblique direction, giving worshippers a view of the altar and therefore of the elevation of the host. Where worshippers were separated from the high altar not by a solid wall of masonry but by a transparent parclose screen, a hagioscope was not required as a good view of the high altar was available to all within the sectioned-off area concerned. Where a squint was made in an external wall so that lepers and other non-desirables could see the service without coming into contact with the rest of the populace, they are termed leper windows or lychnoscopes.
Squint in wall of north aisle chapel, St Nicholas's Church, Walcot, Lincolnshire, looking towards south-east, with a view of the high altar in the chancel beyond. To its right is a piscina supported by a carving of a man's head on the jamb of the wall.
The squint at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Compton Pauncefoot, Somerset
Hagioscope at Olavinlinna in Eastern Finland
Hagioscope, old church of Saint-Maurice, Freyming-Merlebach, Moselle, France