CRYPT BENEATH THE CHANCEL OF REPTON CHURCH. 169 
roof of these chapels can be traced outside, above the ground level 
(though least on the north side), where they served as a sort of 
rude buttresses to the wall originally. 
At the south-east corner of the crypt the remains of a stone seat or 
sedilia appears to exist in the floor. There is thus reason to 
suspect that on the introduction of the vaulting the old floor was 
raised by filling in to a depth of, it may be, 14 or 16 inches. The 
Saxon walling disclosed the remnant of a Saxon custom in con- 
struction, and one so singular in such application that I was led 
to re-test my dimensions before becoming satisfied on the point. 
This singularity is, that the walls of the lower chapel, at least, were 
originally built so as to slope inwards, precisely as takes place in 
the openings of Saxon doors and windows. (See the various 
sections on plate XII.) This discovery has led me to seek if it could 
possibly be discovered whether other Saxon buildings presented 
the same feature, and I now have reason to suspect some accord 
of the sort to probably exist in the case of the “Saxon Chapel ” 
at Bradford-on-Avon, Wilts. 
The Saxon wall ashlar, as presented inside, is so remarkably 
smooth as to leave small doubt it was produced by rubbing 
with a stone face and sand and water. Whether this is 
original or whether executed when the Norman work was inserted 
it is very difficult now to decide. No masons’ marks, so far as I 
saw, remain. ‘The original height of the lower chapel may be 
approximated to, from the blocked windows which lighted it. 
From their situation it will be found to have been impossible for 
any sort of wooden groining to have then existed. But the 
wooden floor of the upper choir may have had a series of wooden 
diagonal supporting braces below its beams resting on the top line 
of the singular cornice. This cornice appears to have been a 
rude attempt to imitate a classic cornice, and so far as I know 
stands alone in remains of Saxon work in England. The walls of 
the interior of the present chancel are in such a state as prevents 
any trace of information being recovered therefrom. But on the 
exterior, though no trace of any lights to the upper chapel remain, 
yet the old height of walls is perfectly preserved. The angle 
