CHURCHES IN THE RURAL DEANERY OF DORCHESTER. 39 



EASTER SEPULCHRE : Of the same period is the rest for the 

 Easter sepulchre on the north side of the chancel, which may have 

 been brought also from the priory, or it may have been transferred 

 from the old St. Peter's church. It is a good specimen of 

 architectural design of the 14th century, late in the style and in 

 fair preservation ; the stone slab on which the sepulchre rested is 

 supported on panelled sides and a front, which is ornamented by 

 sunk quatrefoils ; the canopy above is an ogee in form, richly 

 crocketted, flanked by finials, and finished beneath in a large 

 trefoil, each foil of which is trefoiled in its turn ; in the spandrels 

 are monograms (plate 1). 



The north chancel aisle of the church, where this sepulchre 

 originally stood, is said to have been built by the ancestors of Sir 

 John Williams, of Herringston, whose monument, erected in 1628, 

 now stands at the east end of it. As the "Williams' family were 

 benefactors to the church, and as some of them are buried within 

 its walls, it is not improbable that this receptacle for the sepulchre 

 may have been given to the church by one of the family, in which 

 case the J.W. in one of the spandrels may be the monogram of the 

 donor. John is a name which frequently occurs in the history of 

 the family. Amongst others a grant of arms was made to John 

 Williams, gentleman, of Herringston, late of Dorchester, in 1525 ; a 

 later Sir John Williams was buried in 1617. If the K in the 

 centre of the second quatrefoil in the base stands for Richard II., 

 the date of the sepulchre would be somewhere between 1377-1399, 

 the period of the transition from Decorated to Perpendicular 

 English style, with which date the architecture of this sepulchre 

 would accord. 



"Bloxam" (Principles of Gothic Architecture, vol. 2), writes 

 thus of the Easter sepulchre : " Within the north wall of the 

 chancel of many churches near the altar a large arch like that of a 

 sepulchral arch, more or less decorated, may be perceived ; within 

 this the holy sepulchre generally a wooden and moveable struc- 

 ture was set up at Easter, when certain rites commemorative of 

 the burial and resurrection of our Lord were anciently performed 



