BERMONDSPIT HUNDRED 



UPTON GREY 





The east arch of the tower is pointed, of one 

 chamfered order with a chamfered string at the 

 springing, and on its west face remains of a painted 

 masonry pattern in red lines, each square inclosing a 

 rose. The west arch is as already noted, and there 

 are traces of openings in the north and south walls, as 

 if for arches to transepts. There is, however, no 

 definite evidence that transepts were ever built. The 

 opening on the south, of which only the east jamb is 

 to be seen, would have been only 3 ft. 6 in. wide if it 

 was set centrally with the tower, but that on the 

 north, a few stones of the east jamb of which, with an 

 edge roll worked on them, remain in the wall below a 

 late fifteenth-century two-light window, may have 

 been of ample width. On the outer face of the south 

 wall of the chancel, just to the east of the east wall of 

 the tower, are the toothings of a destroyed wall or 

 buttress ; they look rather too slight to have formed 

 part of the east wall of a transept here, and such an 

 east wall would more naturally have been set in the 

 same line as that of the tower. The upper stories of 

 the tower are reached by a square-headed doorway 

 near the west angle of its south wall, at some height 

 from the ground, access to it being by a 

 ladder from the churchyard. 



The nave has a north arcade of three 

 bays, of eighteenth-century date, with 

 plastered semicircular arches on octagonal 

 columns. They stand on stone plinths 

 which may belong to an older arcade. 

 The north aisle is of red brick with large 

 round-headed windows inclosing pairs of 

 pointed lights. In the west wall is a 

 doorway of cut brickwork with a moulded 

 cornice, with a round-headed window 

 over it and a small oval opening in the 

 west gable ; on the outer face of the 

 wall a number of initials, probably con- 

 temporary, are cut in the brickwork. 



In the south wall of the nave are two 

 similar windows, set in the blocking of 

 the arcades already referred to ; the west 

 jamb of an older window is to be seen in 

 the west bay, showing that the blocking is 

 at least older than the eighteenth century. Enough 

 of the arcade is exposed to show that it had half- 

 octagonal responds and plainly-moulded capitals with 

 bells ; the tooling of the masonry points to a date 

 late in the twelfth century, but the details of the 

 arcade are very advanced for such a date. The 

 springing of the west arch coincides with the south- 

 west angle of the nave, and has the early impost 

 already mentioned. The south doorway of the 

 nave has a two-centred arch with a continuous 

 edge-roll, and opens from a modern oak-framed porch 

 with chalk masonry between the timbers and a red- 

 tiled roof; it was doubtless once in the south wall 

 of the destroyed aisle. 



The west window of the nave is square-headed, 

 with two cinquefoiled lights of fifteenth-century date, 

 and below it in the plaster are three crosses, made when 

 the plaster was fresh ; they are probably consecration 

 crosses. 



The font, which stands midway in the nave on the 

 north side, is of the fifteenth century, and has an 

 octagonal bowl with quatrefoiled panels and a slender 

 octagonal stem. 



In the east wall of the nave, on the south side, is a 



fourteenth-century recess with an ogee head, 1 6 in. 

 wide, with a plastered back ; it probably held the 

 image above the south nave altar. 



The chancel roof is old, with trussed rafters, and 

 the nave has a good roof with tie beams and collars, 

 with braces to the collars and purlins. On the second tie 

 beam from the east is this inscription : 'This Frame 

 was erected the 7 day of July 1608. John Clarke 

 the minister, Thomas King and Brian Matew church- 

 wardens.' Hanging from it by a wrought-iron bar, 

 adorned with three sets of scrolls and flowers, is a fine 

 brass chandelier with fourteen lights. 



The north aisle is full of good contemporary oak 

 pews, and in the nave is a west gallery, also of the 

 eighteenth century, with a very pretty and delicately 

 worked balustrade, small pointed arches springing from 

 the balusters. At the angles and over the posts of the 

 gallery are Corinthian columns ranging with the 

 balusters. 



At the south-east of the chancel is the alabaster 

 monument of Lady Dorothy Eyre, 1650, with a 

 portrait bust under a pediment with heraldry ; the 

 inscription is on a black marble tablet below, and in 



Aisle 



Early 12* O. I 

 13 Late 12 th - I 



14" 1 Century 



13 th & Modem 



CHURCH OF OUR LADY, UPTON GREY 



the west gallery is a wooden board with a set of verses 

 in English to her memory. 



On the east wall of the nave, on the north side, is 

 part of an inscription painted in red Gothic capitals ; 

 some twenty letters are preserved, and it appears to be 

 in English. Most unfortunately it is too fragmentary 

 to be read with any certainty. 



There are five bells, one being a small clock bell of 

 1761. Of the others the treble is by Thomas Mears, 

 1832, the second is a mediaeval bell, by John Saunders 

 or a predecessor, bearing the arms of the see of Win- 

 chester in a circle with four fleurs-de-lis on its circum- 

 ference, and inscribed ' Sancta An ora pro nobis'; the 

 third is of 1631, inscribed ' Prayes the Lord' ; and 

 the tenor, probably an early sixteenth-century bell, has 

 ' Sancti blasi ' in black-letter smalls. 



The plate comprises a communion cup, a paten, and 

 a large flagon, given in 1 724 to the church by a former 

 incumbent whose initials, T. G., occur on the cup 

 and flagon ; a paten given by Agnes Beaufoy ; and 

 another cup and paten given, together with a glass 

 flagon and cruet, in 1884. 



The first book of the registers begins in 1550 and 

 ends in 1672 ; the second contains the burials 1680 



385 



49 



