546 ST. CLETHER CHAPEL AND HOLy "WELLS. 



must have been a step down from the altar-end, as otherwise 

 the loculus would have been un-come-at-able ; and therefore 

 when the concrete was laid level throughout, it was sunk flush 

 with the loculus-floor. 



Throughout the work, the chief difiiculty had been to keep 

 the interior fairly dry ; and eventually several drains had to be 

 made from the vicinity of the upper well, and carried round 

 east and west of the chapel, before the springs on the North 

 side (exclusive of the holy-well-spring), were finally disposed 

 of. 



In the reconstruction of the Chapel, let it be frankly 

 admitted that sentiment rather than practical utility has been the 

 motive. The parish church, close at hand, serves all spiritual 

 purposes ; and the chapel will be only occasionally used — for 

 baptisms, or perhaps on the Festival of the Saint — when it 

 has been handed over to the church, as is believed to be 

 Mr. Spry's pious intention. But one cannot avoid thinking 

 that sentiment must have been largely the cause of the erection 

 of the fifteenth-century edifice ; viz. to perpetuate the memory 

 of the site of St. Clether's oratory. For at that period 

 the parish church would sufiice for all worshippers ; and though 

 the Chapel was attached to the neighbouring mansion of Lower 

 Basil, the ancient home of the Trevelyans, it could but ill have 

 served as a private chapel ; the first essential of a domestic 

 chapel being that it forms part and parcel of a house, whereas 

 in this case the church and the chapel are about equi-distant 

 from Basil. 



The stone altar, never thrown down, conclusively proves 

 the fifteenth-century building to have been more than a 

 Baptistery ; but why, and by whom it was set up, and for what 

 purposes used, is all unknown. The upper well appears to have 

 been its/o«s et origo. This well is not square with the chapel, 

 and the chapel appears to have been placed where it is, so that 

 a straight drain might run through the substance of its east 

 wall. 



In reference to the loculus Mr. Baring-Gould writes : "My 

 theory of the recess and second well is this : — The bones of the 

 saint (or som@ other bones), were inserted in the recess ; and 



