248 THE ANTIQUITIES 



LETTER IV. 



WE have now taken leave of the inside of the church, and shall 

 pass by a door at the west end of the middle aile into the belfry. 

 This room is part of a handsome square embattled tower of forty- 

 five feet in height, and of much more modern date than the 

 church ; but old enough to have needed a thorough repair in 

 1781, when it was neatly stuccoed at a considerable expense, by 

 a set of workmen who were employed on it for the greatest part 

 of the summer. The old bells, three in number, loud and out of 

 tune, were taken down in 1735, and cast into four ; to which Sir 

 Simeon Stuart, the grandfather of the present baronet, added a 

 fifth at his own expense : and, bestowing it in the name of his 

 favourite daughter Mrs. Mary Stuart, caused it to be cast with 

 the following motto round it : 



" Clara puella dedit, dixitque mihi esto Maria : 

 " Illius et laudes nomen ad astra sono." 



The day of the arrival of this tuneable peal was observed as an 

 high festival by the village, and rendered more joyous, by an order 

 from the donor, that the treble-bell should be fixed bottom upward 

 in the ground, and filled with punch, of which all present were 

 permitted to partake. 



The porch of the church, to the south, is modern, and would 

 not be worthy attention did it not shelter a fine sharp gothic door- 

 way. This is undoubtedly much older than the present fabric ; 

 and, being found in good preservation, was worked into the wall, 

 and is the grand entrance into the church : nor are the folding- 

 doors to be passed over in silence ; since, from their thick and 

 clumsy structure, and the rude flourished-work of their hinges, 

 they may possibly be as ancient as the door-way itself. 



the wall between the transept and the chancel there is the appearance of a small 

 door having formerly existed, which from its position must have formed the 

 entrance to the rood-loft ; and I think it possible that the fourth bracket may 

 have supported the stairs which led to it. There is a good piscina belonging 

 to this transept-chantry, of later character than that in the south wall. In the 

 north wall of the transept are the remains of a large window of three lights, the 

 mullions of which show it to be of a later date than the church, probably towards 

 the latter part of the century. This fine window has been curtailed of its fair pro- 

 portions by the bottom of it being blocked up, and the whole upper part being cut 

 off by a heavy beam carried quite across the wall, above which is a hideous circular 

 window. The chancel of the church itself retains very little of its original features, 

 and has no remains of a piscina or any other adjuncts of an altar ; but there is in 

 the north wall a small lancet window, and another in the vestry. Bell.'} 



