6 Notes on the Church of St. Mary 
opening, however, was built up with masonry so nearly assimilated 
to the outer facing—the circular head and splays of jamb and sill 
having been cut away and squared off for this—that until the 
existence of a window had been found on the inside it was almost 
impossible to trace it outside. The stone-work of this window is 
also rebated for a shutter, and has the marks of hooks to which it 
might have been hung, but zo holes for either vertical or cross bars. 
Both windows have deep splays on the inside, the upper opening 
out to 3ft. 10in., and the lower one to 4ft. 9in., and both have 
chamfered segmental inner arches, that of the lower one being 
depressed as if to allow the sill of the upper one to be kept down. 
Above the lower window, on the inside, and at a height of 9ft. 6in. 
from the floor, against the north jamb of the upper window, and formed 
of the same stones, was found an aumbry, lft. 7in. high, lft. 72in. 
wide, and 124in. deep from the face of the wall. A rebate of about 
an inch is carried round the opening, and there are marks of hinges 
on each side of it, as if for folding doors. On the inside there are 
grooves which might have received a thick wood lining, and the 
bottom of the aumbry is carried below the sill, as shewn on the 
section given. That these three features are coeval is clear from 
the identical character of the stone of which they are constructed, 
and from the inner sill of the upper window being carried along to 
support the masonry of the aumbry, the surrounding walling being 
of rubble. The low window and the aumbry, and especially the 
inaccessible position of the latter, offer ground for much speculation 
as to their use.’ In considering this subject it must be borne in 
mind, that the archway at the east end of this aisle (H, Fig. 1, 
Plate I.) did not exist when these features were constructed, but 
that probably an altar stood in this position, of which the lower 
window would command a full view. My conjecture was that the 
aumbry was employed as a receptacle for the reserved Host, used in 
communicating persons outside through the low window, and that 
its elevated position was for the better security of its contents from 
1 Whatever use was made of these features, it apparently came to an end in 
the fifteenth century, for the stone “filling” of this low window is shewn by 
my oyster shell test to be of that date. 
I eee ee 
——— 
