the glazed or encaustic tiles that once formed the pavement. These bases with a portion of their shafts have been removed-with several other fragments, such as mullions, bosses, and architraves, together with three stone coffins also found-to a plantation adjoining the residence of Mr. Rudge, about a mile distant from the town. But as the pillars of the nave, when found in their original situation stood within a walled enclosure, it is matter of deep regret that this portion of the foundations, at least, was not suffered to remain in its ancient position; as it would in that situation have been secured from injury, and might thus have displayed for many years the actual basis-a most interesting ground-plan-of the chief portion of the Great Church of Evesham, now utterly thrown down. The transept or great cross aisle-marked E, F in plan-erected in the same century, was doubtless of corresponding style; an opinion which the bases of its ponderous walls corroborated. The choir and chancel, or portion peculiarly devoted to the performance of religious offices, having been rebuilt in the middle of the thirteenth century, when the lancet-arch style of architecture was at its zenith, most probably displayed much of the general appearance still observable in Salisbury cathedral. Excepting that at a subsequent period it received additions of a later character from abbot Lichfield's hand. Of this important portion, however, no vestiges remained; for the choir being seated upon the Norman crypt or subterranean story-marked H in plan-the basement of the choir was wholly swept away in breaking up, after the Dissolution, the arched covering of the crypt or undercroft; which latter portion was also at the same time destroyed, except its basement represented in the plan. Here then we see the bases of the subterranean piers and bulky columns, on which were wrought the well-compacted vaults that sustained the pavement of the choir and chancel aisle, with all their weight of masonry-piers, arches, monuments, altars, screens, and shrines. Between the pillars of the nave and crypt-marked D in planare shown the bases of the four piers that once sustained the central tower. That structure, as having fallen and been rebuilt during the fourteenth century, presented, we may consider, all that beauty of outline and richness of decoration which distinguish that period. From incidental notices in the conventual registers, we learn that this structure was distinctively termed "the great tower ;" and the distances from pier to pier, seen in the plan, prove that it far exceeded in diameter, as it doubtless did in height, the remaining and adjacent bell-tower. The easternmost division of the crypt-marked I in plan-must have sustained a transverse aisle or lesser transept, immediately behind the choir. This aisle has by a recent writer been considered as having "probably formed the Lady Chapel ;" 72 which was that division of the church peculiarly appropriated to the worship of the Virgin Mary. But the limited width of this passage-only about sixteen feet across from east to west-forbids that supposition: more especially as intimations abound in the conventual registers of the importance of the Lady Chapel here and, by inference, of its extent. The aisle above adverted to, was most probably that restored 79 Memoir, by Edward John Rudge, esq. M. A., F. S. A., published by the Antiquarian Society, in Vetusta Monumenta, vol. v. page 4. by Thomas de Marleberg, after the fall of the central tower, wherein he caused a lectern or reading-stand to be placed; where likewise stood the altar of St. John the Baptist, and St. Wilsin's tomb.73 The usual situation of the Lady Chapel would place it eastward of the aisle just noticed. Its probable extent as appended to such a church as this of Evesham, would be between sixty and one hundred feet from west to east. The two projections in the masonrylettered J in plan-appear to mark the junction of the north and south walls of this chapel with the aisle or lesser transept eastward of the choir. From the notice of consecration preserved in one of the registers the Lady Chapel here must have been added by abbot Brokehampton about the year 1294:74 "this supplement to churches having "—in the language of a recent writer-" been wholly unknown to the ecclesiastical structures of Norman origin.”75 Our opinion respecting the period of its erection is corroborated by the following inscription, which one of the registers records as then appearing on the altar-screen of this chapel, beneath paintings illustrating the impious acts of the Herods : "Perpetuis annis animæ sit vita Johannis Pictor Martensis habitator Londoniensis. From the Institutes of abbot Randulph, as also from two other 73 Retro chorum in ecclesia Evesham . . . . juxta tumba Sci. Wlsini."-Cott. Register, Vespasian B xxiv. 74 After enumerating various altars in the abbey church consecrated here in 1295, by the bishop of St. Asaph, the manuscript thus concludes—“ In crastino Sancti Egwini [January 11] Capellam Beatæ Mariæ."-Cott. MS. Vitellius E in Stevens. 75 Cursory Disquisition on the Conventual Church of Tewkesbury, 8vo. p. 47. 76"May the soul of abbot John of Evesham live for ever, who thus at his own charge adorned the altar of the blessed Mary. Richard [de Bromesgrove] repaired the work. The painter was Marten, an inhabitant of London. "Herod the Ascolonite destroying the Infants-Herod Antipas keeping JohnHerod Agrippa keeping James and Peter in prison."-Versus in tabula super altare Beatæ Mariæ, in Cott. MS. Nero D iii. fol. 246. |