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and Bradenford, and prior to his death, which took place about 709, 

 he is said to have dedicated Bradford to St. Lawrence. From this 

 early date we do not hear much of Bradford, so far as the history 

 of its monastery is concerned, till the year 1001, when it is recorded 

 that King Ethelred the Unready gave to the Abbess of Shaftes- 

 bury the monastery and ville of Bradford, that they might have 

 an " impenetrabile confugium" for the nuns from the ravages of 

 the Danes, and a hiding place for the relics of the blessed martyr 

 St. Edward, and the rest of the saints. Thus it remained till the 

 dissolution of the monasteries. In 1712 John Eogers, then vicar, 

 opened a school, and in 1715 the Rev. Nathan Wright, of Engle- 

 field, in the county of Berks, demised the building adjoining " the 

 churchyard of Bradford Church, commonly called the "skuU- 

 house," and then converted into a charity school-house to the 

 parish of Bradford for 1,000 years, paying a pepper-corn rent. 

 Mr. Irvine believed that the present roof of the chancel was put 

 on about 1636, as a fragment of decorated woodwork of an old 

 wall-plate was used ; and at that date the present roof was put 

 on the chancel of the parish church. He then considered the 

 probable date of the present building, by the aid of elevations, 

 sections, plan and sketches, which were handed about the 

 room. He explained how the details of the capitals and bases 

 of the various arches of decoration, the peculiarity of the 

 "step-bases" of the flat pilasters differed from all Norman 

 buildings, and gave strong evidence of Saxon workmanship. He 

 had originally come to the conclusion that the date of 975 might 

 be assigned to it, and of this he recently found strong corroborative 

 evidence in a comparison of the figures of the two angels which 

 have been found in the east wall of the schoolroom with the figures 

 of angels in the illuminated MS. of the " Benediction of St. 

 iEthelwold," who was Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984. The 

 peculiar napkin which the angels are holding in their hands, 

 apparently extended towards a central figure, probably of our Lord, 

 now missing, is recognised in plates 17 and 23. Again, in the 

 same vol. of the " Archseologia," in a copy of Csedmon's " Metrical 

 Paraphrase of Scripture History," written about 1000, the caps 

 and " stepped " bases in the illustrations are seen precisely the 



