1 6 THE CHURCH AND VILLAGE OF MONYASH. 



district, about the close of the reign of Edward III. and running 

 into that of Richard 11. The work of this period may be roughly 

 assigned to circa 1370-80; a date when the curvilinear or 

 Decorated style was yielding place in most parts of England 

 to the dawn of the rectilinear or Perpendicular style. In this 

 part of Derbyshire (and elsewhere in the county, as in the 

 chancel of Breadsali) there came about a somewhat exceptional 

 development in the shape of square-headed windows whose 

 tracery had no touch of rectilineal work about them — such were 

 the continuation of Tideswell chancel, the almost entire rebuild- 

 ing of Taddington church, and the remodelling of much of the 

 church of Monyash. At that date a southern chancel window 

 (and probably also an east window) was given to Monyash, and 

 also new windows to the north and south aisles, all of square- 

 headed shape. The four-light window in the south wall of 

 the latter aisle, with flamboyant tracery, is a highly unusual 

 example. The south porch was probably then built or rebuilt 

 over a beautifully moulded doorway of the first half of that 

 century. From rather full notes taken in 1872, when the porch 

 was in ruins, it may be confidently asserted that this was not 

 originally what is termed an " open porch," but had a doorway 

 in its south wall. It has recently been restored with an oak 

 screen at the entrance. 



Among the little known uses to which church porches were 

 not infrequently put was the holding inquests therein by the 

 coroner over the corpses of those accidentally or wilfully killed. 

 There are the records of more than one Monyash inquest still 

 extant, wherein John Adderley, who was coroner for this part 

 of Derbyshire from 1677 to 1699, summoned the Jury to meet 

 in the church porch. ^ 



To this late period of the fourteenth century may also be 

 assigned the raising of the tower or the removal of its upper- 

 most stage, and the crowning of it, within the battlements, with 

 an octagon spire, with two tiers of projecting windows at the 

 cardinal points. This spire was taken down and rebuilt (on 



f Cox's Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals, i., 79. 



