182 



The remains of the windows are very slight, but I should expect they 

 had simple wooden tracery in the heads as indicated in the interior view. 



There are a few ornamental floor tUes remaining of the same manufacture 

 and patterijs as exist at Wigmore Abbey and several other places in that jiart of 

 the country. I saw also in the stone plinth one stone which had a splay cut on 

 it and had been used in a former building, probably many such would be found 

 on careful search. 



Date. — The building seems to be of the later half of the 14th century. 



Nature of the Building. — I came prepared to find the remains of a chapel 

 here — and there are certain reasons for thinking that it was a building of this 

 kind— as 



1. It is called Chapel Farm. 



2. It stands east and west. 



3. The orchard on south side tradition calls "the burial-ground." It 

 Would be in a suitable position for such a purpose, and it has two yew trees 

 at the comer some centuries old. 



4. There is the break in the plinth at the east end where a stone altar 

 might be expected to exist. 



5. There is but one piece of furniture belonging to the house, that is to the 

 landlord, and this exactly corresponds with the old communion tables. It was 

 certainly intended to stand against a wall, and has turned front legs and a 

 loose slab on top. It is of very large size, larger indeed than is common in 

 parish churches. 



I am, however, of opinion that the building is the Hall or principal part 

 of a 14th century house, and for the following reasons : — 



1. The timber construction though rare in ecclesiastical buildings is 

 common in domestic buildings. 



2. The arrangement of a large room with one chamber, if not two looking 

 over it, is unusual with churches, but was part of the regular arrangement 

 with halls where the solar usually had a window of inspection looking down 

 into the hall itself. In the case of chapels where the closet or pew of the 

 master of the house looked into them, the opening was large, so that his family 

 could see also. 



3. The curved braces under the roof are more ornamental than we usually 

 find in churches, but they are quite common in halls, the roofs of which were 

 handsomer. But the roof trusses are of a plain design, such as we find in barns 

 and other domestic buildings — hardly ever in a church. 



4. I can detect nothing which indicates a chancel or a part more highly 

 decorated than the rest, and the east window cannot have been at all of the 

 usual scale for a church or chapel. 



5. I can find no mention of a chapel in the ordinary authorities at or 

 about the time of the Reformation, while if it had so existed and had even 



