Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury Part 14

The north wall of these buildings contains an early fifteenth century two-light window, upon which the other windows seem to have been modelled. The south wall contains two windows, one of two lights, the lower one four. The east side is the most interesting from the presence of a reticulated window, similar to one at Clevedon Court, Somerset. This one originally measured 7 feet 6 inches by 2 feet 9 inches, but has been carried up 3 feet higher.

Near to this window, on the east, a wing has been rebuilt on the site of older buildings, with old materials re-used.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. Dr. Oscar Clark._ FOURTEENTH CENTURY WINDOW.]

FOOTNOTES:

[29] In 1339 the Priory had license given to it to hold two fairs annually, each to last three days, outside the precincts. They were to be held "_in inventione et in exaltatione Crucis_."

[30] The tomb of Sir Bryan de Stapleton and Cecilia Bardolph at Ingham (1438) has a dog upon it. His name is "_Jakke_."

[31] The plan shows parts which now exist only in the form of foundations below ground. They are taken from a plan made in 1860 under the direction of Mr. Slater the architect, who was then carrying out considerable alterations in the church. It is now in the collection of the Society of Antiquaries. The southern apse was not found by Mr. Slater, but is put in on the authority of Dr. J.H.

Middleton, who found evidence of it.--J.T.M.

THE SAXON CHAPEL.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. R.W. Dugdale._ THE SAXON CHAPEL.]

About eighty yards or so from the Church of St. Mary at Deerhurst was discovered in 1885 in property known as _Abbot's Court_, a second Saxon building. It was proved, after careful examination, that this was a chapel, and the discovery of this fact threw considerable light upon the inscribed stone in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, which had been removed thither in 1675, bearing the inscription--

+-----------------------------------+ ODDA DVX IVSSIT HANC REGIAM AVLAM CONSTRVI ATQVE DEDICARI IN HONO- RE S TRINITATIS PRO ANIMA GER MANI SVI aeLFRICI QVE DE HOC LOCO a.s.sVPTA. EALDREDVS VERO EPS QVI EANDE DEDICAVIT II IDI BVS APL, XIIII AVTE ANNOS REG NI EADWARDI REGIS ANGLORV. +-----------------------------------+

_I.e._ to say in English: " Duke Odda ordered this Royal Hall to be built and dedicated to the honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother aelfric which was taken up from this place.

Bishop Ealdred it was who dedicated the same on the 12th April in the 14th year of the reign of Edward, King of the English."

[Ill.u.s.tration: _From "The Archaeological Journal."_]

This stone, of which a facsimile has been erected in this Saxon chapel, was for many years a.s.sumed to refer to the larger church at Deerhurst, but as soon as the smaller chapel was discovered, it was seen that the inscription could only refer to that building. The finding of a second stone, the dedication slab of an altar, in a chimney-stack, also seemed to confirm the idea that the building, with its nave, its chancel arch, and its chancel, was the chapel dedicated in 1056 by Earl Odda.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The dedication stone has been mutilated by being converted into the topmost portion of a window, and the inscription admits of two interpretations. What remains is here shown. This may mean "_In honorem sanctae Trinitatis hoc altare dedicatum est_," or, as Mr.

Micklethwaite suggests, "_In honorem Sancti Petri[32] apli (apostoli) hoc altare dedicatum est._"

The chapel consists of a nave 25 feet 6 inches in length by 15 feet 10 inches in breadth, and a chancel 14 feet by 11 feet 3 inches, entered by a round-headed arch 6 feet 6 inches in width and 10 feet in height.[33]

The jambs of this curious arch are nearly 28 inches and the imposts nearly 10 inches in thickness. The latter are chamfered and moulded rudely with two hollows. The arch is distinctly horse-shoe-shaped, and on the nave side has a square label merging into the abacus, while the chancel side has none. The doorways were two in number, opposite to each other, in the north and south walls. Of the latter only traces remain. The north door was blocked when the chapel was discovered, but is now opened to give means of access to the building. Only half the doorway is original.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Photo. R.W. Dugdale._ CHANCEL ARCH IN THE SAXON CHAPEL.]

It is a doubtful point how the chancel was lighted, as there is no trace of a window in the old portion of the east wall, while the rest of this wall and the south wall were Tudor alterations. The north wall contains a sixteenth century window.

In the north-east corner of the chancel is an Early English bracket of beautiful work, for the presence of which it is difficult to account, unless the chapel were in use in the thirteenth century.

The walls of the nave were originally 17 feet high, as compared with 15 feet for the chancel portion. There were also two windows in the nave opposite to each other. That in the north wall has been altered; that in the south wall is very curious and interesting. It is splayed both inside and out, from an opening 3- 2- feet, with a sill 10 feet 6 inches above the level of the ground. The arch is of long, thin slabs of stone, inserted in mortar with wide joints, in some cases two inches in thickness.

A ladder gives access to what was the floor above, when the chapel was divided into two floors for domestic occupation.

Externally the chapel measures 46 feet by 21 feet, the walls being on an average 30 inches thick.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] The property even then belonged to the Abbey of St. Peter at Westminster.

[33] "Most small English churches were built on a plan which is purely '_Scottish_,' all through the Saxon time and beyond it. There are scores of them all over the country. The smaller church at Deerhurst, built in the middle of the eleventh century, will serve for an example. Note its small square presbytery and narrow arch. The church at Kirkdale, near Kirby Moorside, is a contemporary dated building of like form, but rather larger size" (J.T. Micklethwaite in _Arch.

Journal_, vol. liii.).