166 CRYPT BENEATH THE CHANCEL OF REPTON CHURCH. 
valuable work on the Churches of Derbyshire, wherein he has given 
notes of its early history. So closely are these in accord with the 
facts presented by the architectural remains seen in the building 
of the chancel, as to render it almost unnecessary to do more than 
compare and mention the same in a corresponding order. Indeed 
the summary of the whole reduces it but to this, that— 
1st. There is here seen to have been, in early Saxon times, at this 
spot a church, consisting of probably but a nave and chancel. 
The whole built of oak beams connected together, but more 
strongly so, towards the base. (Curious traces of this beam 
construction presented at the point of junction of the nave and 
choir walls, will be again reverted to further on.) 
2nd. A new period came, when a rebuilding confined to the 
chancel took place of stone, but leaving the wooden nave and 
its chancel arch. Thus parts of the lower ends of the upright 
beams, at the point of junction of the two buildings, from their 
connection with the timber work of the nave at its east end 
had to be left, and so remained with the new Saxon stone work of 
the choir butting up against and over them. 
In addition to the former square chancel, three small chapels 
were added on its north, south, and east sides. The choir itself 
being formed into the shape of an upper and lower chancel, the 
lower being sunk down into the ground, no doubt to obtain space 
for the required height of each chapel, without destroying the 
ability to connect this new double choir with the old Saxon 
wooden nave, which had to be preserved. The division between 
the upper and lower chapels, and chancels, must have been by 
the means of a wooden floor; below which, in the south wall, two 
narrow lights lighted the lower choir. These two lights remain at 
present, and though now built up, fairly enable us to discover that 
this rebuilding of the choir in stone must have taken place only 
in late Saxon times (probably somewhere about 1050), in the 
reign of the Confessor: for their glass plane had advanced close 
to that of the wall front, and the use of a mid-wall light slab 
had been abandoned. A sure mark of late Saxon date. 
The entrances to the lower chancel and its chapels was through 
