254 Notes on the History of Mere. 
proper remains structurally in its original condition, the walls, roof, 
two square-headed windows on the north and a pointed one in the 
east: the doorway opening into it from the hall (as well as the one 
leading to the chapel) with its door and jiinges and the piscina in the 
south wall of the sacrarium, are all parts of the original building. 
It has also a coeval outside built-up doorway in the north wall, 
which could only have been approached by an external stairs, and 
there are traces of a west window which was removed to make way 
for the Elizabethan chimneypiece. The first alteration in the 
building appears to have been the insertion of two windows and an 
inside doorway in the walls of the apartment beneath the chapel : 
this took place probably about 1530, when the north door of the 
chapel was doubtless built up and the stairs removed. 
“About the year 1600 the chapel was converted into a living 
room, and a chimney stack built against the outside of the wall (as 
the construction of the masonry shows). A chimney piece of rich 
design was put at the west end of the chapel, and a similar one 
bearing the arms of Dodington impaling Francis,! in the room 
beneath, the latter also had the addition of an elaborate plaster 
ceiling, part of which has been destroyed over the portion screened 
off. But beyond these and some modern fittings to adapt the 
chapel as a cheese-room and the space beneath as a sitting-room 
and pantry, no alteration has been made in the building, and in it 
is presented to us, up to the present time, one of the most complete 
specimens of a domestic chapel of the middle ages that it is possible 
to find. 
“The contemplated operations, as set forth in the specification of which I 
received a copy February, 1888, would destroy features of the greatest possible 
value here, and, in fact, well-nigh obliterate all the historical evidence the building 
affords: they consist of :— 
“1, Removing the ‘circular ceiling,’ which is the original barrel vault of 
the roof, and substituting a flat one (a portion of the hall roof has 
already been hidden from view by similar means, though not 
destroyed). 
> 
1 Christopher Dodington, who died 1584, was a man of importance in his day, 
and: doubtless it was he who converted the chapel and the room beneath into 
living rooms, made the rich plaster ceilings in the latter, and built the chimney. 
This would thus appear to have been done a few years earlier than I supposed, 
judging from the work only, or 1560—1570. C.E.P. 
