232 A NOTE ON THE RESTORATION OF REPTON CHURCH. 



The old spiral stone staircase, up to the parvise over the south 

 porch, has been discovered in the wall to the west of the main 

 entrance. The doorway opens into the church, and had been 

 blocked up, plastered over, and forgotten when the galleries 

 were erected. The disfiguring lean-to staircase on the west side, 

 opening into the porch, was then constructed. This is to be 

 removed, and the old staircase re-opened. 



Several portions of the alabaster basement and sides of the 

 tomb of the old knight of the Frances family, whose effigy is now 

 in the crypt on a brick substructure, have been found beneath 

 the old flooring. 



The floor of this church, which was so disastrously raised in 

 1792, when the finely- carved old pews were swept away, and many 

 other enormities committed, is now being reduced to its former 

 level, exposing the bases of the piers, which, in several cases, have 

 been much mutilated. In one or two places the old tiling has 

 been uncovered in situ, consisting of red tiles laid square, with 

 a few of ordinary encaustic pattern. 



The removal of the flooring, and further excavations, have 

 brought to light very interesting facts relative to the first church 

 of St. Wystan, built here in the tenth century, on the site, it would 

 seem, of the revered monastery destroyed by the Danes. The 

 body of the church consisted of a short nave, extending down only 

 two bays of the present nave, and seems to have had narrow side 

 aisles. It will be recollected by the members of the Institute who 

 were*"present in the church last August, that Mr. Mickletwaite con- 

 sidered that the extent of the old Saxon church would correspond 

 with the change and drop in the line of the string-course moulding 

 over the nave arcades. This has now been proved to be a most 

 correct surmise. It is here that the returning angles of the west 

 wall of the Saxon nave have been uncovered, about two feet below 

 the flooring of 1792. 



It is not desirable, now, to anticipate in detail any more mature 

 opinion that may be arrived at after the necessary repair of the 

 chancel has been undertaken ; but it may be here placed on record 

 that the savants, who so carefully inspected the most ancient parts 



