an erroneous conclusion of Mr. Tindal's, by terming this arch "the principal entrance to the abbey."9 The bell-tower, happily preserved, remains almost in that perfect state in which it passed from its founder's hand. It was commenced by abbot Lichfield about the year 1533, as a receptacle for the clock and great bell of the monastery, and at the same time as a gatehouse to the conventual cemetery.95 We have named this year, from a 94 Edition by Caley, Ellis, and Bandinel, vol. ii. page 12. 95"He made a right sumptuous and high square tower of stone in the cemetary of Evesham. This tower had a great bell in it and a goodly clock, and was as a gatehouse to one piece of the abbey."-Leland's Itinerary, vol. iv. page 72. Willis presumption that as the erection of the finely-proportioned tower of Magdalen College, Oxford, occupied six years, 96 the present structure must have required a similar period; and it being apparent as we shall shortly notice that the fabric was scarcely finished at the resignation of its founder in 1539, the year above mentioned would give the period of its commencement. Its situation must have so nearly adjoined the church, that the northern transept abutting almost against it, would thus conceal its lower stories on the south a reason for the absence of much ornament on that side, as also for that departure from uniformity observable in the window of its upper part. The sacerdotal architect, in his construction of this tower, has with correctest taste, preferred the style of a preceding era, to the already debased manner of his own day so that, in the absence of direct evidence to the contrary, its distinctive features might appropriate it to the reign of Henry the Sixth. The fabric is square; strengthened from base to parapet by graduated buttresses with panelled fronts. Its east and western faces exactly correspond; each being divided into three compartments. The first includes a spacious archway, under an ogee canopy with crockets and an elaborate finial; in the second is a window of considerable size, canopied in the same manner, and filled with tracery of very graceful form; and the upper story includes a pair of narrower windows, beneath a double ogee with crockets and concluding finials. Both these fronts are entirely covered, save where arches occur, with panelled mullions under foliated transoms and the whole is surmounted by an embattled parapet delicately pierced, and crowned with tapering pinnacles appropriately wrought. The fabric stands upon a basement twenty-eight feet square, and its height to the summit of the pinnacles is 110 feet. From the Dineley Manuscript, circ. 1684—cited by Mr. E. J. Rudge as then in the possession of Sir T. E. Winnington, bart. 97-we glean some supposes that the great bell continued till the Dissolution, and was then melted down toward forming the present peal. 96 Dallaway's Observations on English Architecture, page 126. 97 Short Account of the History and Antiquities of Evesham. 12mo. Evesham, 1820, page 56. minute particulars respecting the dial and the bells with which this clock-tower was at that time furnished. "C The tower of Clement Lichfield is built of freestone; its dial [apparently above the western front of the archway] besides the hour of the day, sheweth the age of the moon; on the other side of its arch, over it, is an anchor in an escutcheon with this circumscription, "Qui gloriatur in Dno. glorietur." Some vestiges of the anchor and inscription are still discernible above the archway to the east. The bells were at that period six, and the then tenor was inscribed "Eternis annis resonet campana Joannis." Of the present peal, eight in number, the seven first are inscribed with the date 1741; the eighth only being dated earlier, as cast in the mayoralty of Edward Cugley, A. D. 1631. The ancient and characteristic dial having given place to a modern clock with double front, we cannot but continue to urge upon the parishioners the propriety of removing that piece of carved absurdity which, without any manner of purpose, has long been placed above the western dial-plate, veiling the chaste tracery of the upper windows, and thus detracting from the aspect of the structure, in the same degree that a portrait of an individual would suffer by concealing the eyes. In fact no other dial-face, if any such be needed, should be suffered to appear in such a situation than one composed of two concentric iron circles, united by Roman numerals riveted upon both, or cast with them entire. The uniform appearance of this structure, and the harmony of its design, annul a supposition which some have hazarded that the work was either not completed by the founder, or else not carried up to the original elevation of his plan. A general survey will readily prove that any increase in its height would materially have impaired the present graceful outline of the whole. Indeed the only parts that apparently required perfecting when its founder resigned his dignity are a groined cieling within the archway, of which the imposts only are raised, and the upper portion of the newel staircase, now supplied by dangerous-looking ladders. In fact, of all this abbot's works, the bell-tower seems to have been an object of his highest pride. He recorded its erection on the painted glass inserted by him in the great east window of the abbey choir, and |