THE CHURCH AND VILLAGE OF MONYASH. 1 5 



before the church was restored to enable us to say with 

 certainty that these aisles had originally lean-to roofs. The 

 arcades that divide them from the nave are similar; each consists 

 of three arches supported by octagonal piers and corresponding 

 responds, plainly moulded after the fashion that was common 

 in the earlier time of Edward III. 



But the aisle on the south side did not remain long undis- 

 turbed. In 1348 came the founding of the chantr)' of Our Lady 

 by Nicholas de Congesdon and his brother John. This chantrj- 

 was placed at the east end of the south aisle, which was con- 

 siderably extended so as to form a transept of fair dimensions. 

 The throwing out of an archway on the south side of the pier of 

 the arcade nearest to the east, to give admission to the transept 

 from the east end of the south aisle can now be readily traced, 

 and was obviously done soon after the arcade was erected, but 

 formed no part of the original plan. This Congesdon chantry 

 chapel, extensively repaired during the last restoration, has a 

 new three-light window of the style prevailing at the time of its 

 foundation. The three-light square-headed recessed window 

 belongs to the time towards the end of the same century, when 

 the church was largely remodelled; it has small shafts in the 

 jambs. In this chapel is a piscina niche with rounded head; 

 a large stone bracket 26 in. wide, on which there doubtless 

 stood the image of Our Lady ; and a smaller bracket carved into 

 two faces. 



Here may be noted a feature of the exterior east wall of this 

 Lady chapel which is rather difficult to explain. There is an 

 exterior line of moulded stones, flush with the walling, above the 

 square-headed window ; it is not easy to understand for what pur- 

 pose it served prior to the insertion of this window. In fact, this 

 corner or angle of the church, both of chancel and transept, is 

 the one point in the fabric that cannot easily be elucidated. It 

 is more puzzling since the restoration than it was before. 



After this part of Derbyshire had to some extent recovered 

 from the devastating horrors of the Black Death of 1348-9, a 

 wave of church restoration and rebuilding passed over the 



