A NOTE ON THE RESTORATION OF REPTON CHURCH. 233 



of this church last August, were of opinion that the chancel, and the 

 first bay of the nave (so disgracefully removed in 1854), were 

 beyond doubt of Saxon work, and not of early Norman, as has of 

 late been by some supposed. The groined roof and supporting 

 pillars of the crypt were, also, pronounced to be with equal cer- 

 tainty of Saxon date. Indeed, the two stand or fall together, for 

 no careful observer of the capitals of the two pillars that were 

 removed from the nave in 1854, and which now stand in the porch, 

 can doubt, on comparing them with the capitals of the crypt 

 pillars, that they are of approximately the same date. Whilst not 

 accepting all the theories of Mr. Irvine in his most valuable paper 

 on this crypt,* it was generally agreed that he was right in assigning 

 a twofold date to the crypt, and that it had not originally been 

 groined and vaulted, the outer walls, with their remarkable cornice 

 belonging to an earlier period — that is, to an earlier Saxon 

 date. 



My own idea, then, at present is this — that the outer walls of 

 the crypt, with its nearly obliterated three chapels or recesses, 

 pertain to the old lower chancel or crypt of the celebrated Repton 

 Monastery, destroyed by the Danes in 874, and probably erected 

 as it then stood in that same century — that when times of peace 

 came in the next century, and the church of St. Wystan was first 

 raised, the faithful, desirous of interfering as little as possible with 

 the remains of the ancient sanctuary, hallowed by the interment 

 of saints and kings, raised the walls of the later Saxon chancel 

 upon it, strengthened the crypt with stone-groining, so as to bear 

 the chancel above it, constructed the two stairways leading 

 down to the crypt from the nave, and built a short nave with 

 narrow side aisles. 



These two stairways have now been opened out, and it is 

 hoped that arrangements may be made for their remaining in that 

 condition. The bases of the Saxon responds, each side of the 

 chancel arch, that were hacked away in 1854, are now exposed, 

 about two feet of them remaining. The raised flooring of 1792, 



Jottmal of the Derbyshire Arch, and Nat. History Soc, vol. v., pp. 165-172. 



