52 On Edington Church, and Memorials of its History. 
this part of the church. Four lofty arches, meeting from nave, 
transepts, and chancel, are joined by fan tracery which once was 
light and chaste, but which now is defaced by the usual church- 
wardens’ bounty of obliterating washes of many colours and divers 
shades. The south transept claims special notice. A lofty window 
of Decorated architecture lights it, and underneath the southern 
window we observe a tomb, of which again I present a drawing. 
Whose is it ? Who is the lordly monk or mitred abbot who there 
reposes? The architecture and style speak of a later date than the 
times of William of Edington. An ecclesiastic of evident dignity 
reposes under a canopy, the upper part of which is formed of two 
quatrefoils, with long perpendicular tracery meeting at the centre 
of the arches. Four quatrefoils on the body of the tomb contain, 
in their centres, two butts or barrels alternating with two Tudor 
roses: each butt has a branch projecting from the bung. An angel 
above the tomb holds a shield with the same device; whilst on the 
cushion at the feet of the figure are the initials J. B. A delicate 
bordering of Perpendicular foliage runs along the top moulding of 
the tomb; whilst many traces of colouring are to be observed on 
various parts of the tomb, telling us plainly that once it was a rich 
and gorgeous memorial of the departed ecclesiastic. The initials 
J.B. and the rebus on the tomb have suggested to me an elucidation 
of the name of the monk who slumbers below. The purpose of a 
rebus, we all know, is to convey the name of an individual by 
outward symbols. If we take the branch to be a beck, which is an 
old word expressing a twig, and then look at its insertion in the 
ton or barrel, we make the word Beckinton; and as the most 
ordinary mode of describing a monk or friar in those days would 
be the conjunction of his Christian name and place of abode—and 
as the village of Beckington is near enough to have probably 
supplied recruits to the neighbouring Monastery of Edington—may 
it not be that John of Beckington is the name of the monk who 
slumbers in death beneath? This may seem a wide guess; but this 
tomb is just one of those subjects of mystery, that wide guesses 
may be hazarded even at the risk of some archeological Edie 
Ochiltree dissolving the dream by clearly proving that J. B. means 
