70 



park and other meads and pastures.* Going still backwards, the 

 Valor mentions Stalls with the chapel of Widcombe annexed ; and 

 earlier still, in the Wells registers the same thing is found. In 

 1322, Bishop Drokensford's register mentions the admission of the 

 Vicar of Stalls with the chapel of Widcombe, with all the tithes of 

 Widcombe and Lyncombe. So is it in other registers. There is 

 no record of a church or chapel on the site here marked by Smith. 

 Smith's plan may be considered perhaps, not as a map plotted 

 exactly as a survey, but rather as a view — a bird's-eye view — " a 

 portrature" as if taken from Beechen cliff. This church may 

 then be accounted for, the intention being, not to mark exactly a 

 site, but, after the manner of early maps, to mark that here in 

 this suburb was another parish ; and this would then be the parish 

 church of Widcombe. In this case too, as it happens, this was, 

 ecclesiastically, really a part of Bath. It is not forgotten that there 

 was the chapel for lepers, the chapel of St. Mary Magdalen in 

 HoUoway. This is found noticed in 1256 as the chapel of St. 

 Mary " extra civitate Bathonie," thus perhaps marking it as the 

 otherwise unrecognised church of St. Mary extra muros, often 

 mentioned in the local records.* But it need not be confounded 

 with the site or suggested site of the church now considered. 



One note must be made, as from the above documents we get 

 the origin of the name Beachen cliff — this being Beau Chine cliff, 

 chine meaning one side of a gorge such as this is ; and so from 

 Beauchine we drop to Beechen or Beachen, as from Beauchamp 

 we get to Beecham ; without any origin from the beech tree, as 

 many suppose. 



The intention in these notes is not to examine minutely any 

 differences in the early maps, as that may be better done by one 

 more capable and with more minute local knowledge ; but there 

 is yet one point which must be attentively considered, and here 

 too must be quoted for once, one local author, but quoted only to 



* Particulars for Grants, Hen. VIIL t Pat. 40, H. iii., m. 7. 



