62 TABRANT RUSHTON CHURCH. 



the consecration." I am sorry that we no longer possess that 

 paten our present one bears date 1756. The date on the 

 Rawston Church plate is 1639. It was given by Katherine, 

 widow of Arthur Radford (a younger son of the Radfords, of 

 Mount Radford, near Exeter), and daughter of Thomas TJvedale, 

 of Horton. May not George Lovell's bequest, and especially the 

 reason assigned for it, have suggested a similar gift to the 

 neighbouring Church 1 



But for interest, perhaps, there is nothing in the Church to be 

 compared with the slab, or lintel, over the south door. It is 



fa I probably the oldest thing in the Church, and it has been 

 considered that the 10th century is not too early a date to 



'fjjf.ff assign to it. As a piece of sculpture, it is as rude as it could 

 * well be, and yet the work is as sharp to-day as when it came from 

 the craftsman's hand. There are three figures, the central one of 

 which is the Lamb bearing the Cross, or the Agnus Dei. For 

 some years I was asked again and again, but all in vain, for the 

 meaning of the scroll-like form issuing from the Lamb's mouth. 

 Was it by a confusion of metaphor a serpent ? Or was it a sort 

 of label, such as one sometimes sees in old prints, in which are 

 enclosed the words that are supposed to be uttered 1 Or what ? 

 Fortunately, I had lent to me, not, however, with reference to this 

 point, a paper of Dr. Baron's on Stockton Church. It opens with 

 an account of the restoration, of what, for want of a better name, 

 has been called " a horizontal vesica piscis " over the middle and 

 tallest of the three lancet lights of the east window in that Church. 

 He says of it " This is, alas ! only a shadow of the past, for the 

 window was restored in 1840 ; but we have a trustworthy record 

 that the new window was intended to be a careful reproduction of 

 the old one. The very peculiarity of this feature nparly caused its 

 destruction at the beginning of the recent restoration of the 

 Church. Who ever heard of such a thing as ' a horizontal vesica 

 piscis V It could not be original. I pointed out, in the 

 Benedictional of St. Ethelwold, a ' vesica piscis ' leaning to the 

 right, although usually represented vertical in the same tenth 



