184 The Environs of Bath. 



Dissolution. It was an exempt liberty of the Church of 

 Bath, and included in the hundred of Bathforum. The 

 Church, dedicated to St. Mary the Virgin, is, according to 

 tradition, the Mother Church of Bath. It is a very small, 

 but interesting building, though, in its partial reconstruction, 

 not a few of the older architectural features have been lost. 

 The porch is ancient, and the inner arch, as well as the 

 walled-up doorway on the north side bespeak Norman work. 

 The bowl-shaped font stands on a single shaft, and is 

 believed to be Saxon. The stone pulpit, says CoUinson, 

 " is curious, and without doubt as old as the Church itself; 

 it was formerly ascended through a door in the south wall 

 by stone steps, which door still remains, though now blocked 

 up by the seats. It is circular, nine feet in circumference 

 within, and one foot thick all round." The doorway has 

 since been walled up, and quite obliterated ; the pulpit 

 lowered, an access made to it from the interior, and its 

 thickness much- diminished. It has i)een suggested that 

 the nave of the Church was originally intended for the 

 chancel to an older Church, the design of which was never 

 carried out, and certainly the internal structure affords evi- 

 dence in support of this theory. On the north-east side of 

 the Church traces have been discovered of the foundations 

 of some monastic buildings, and, it is quite probable that 

 a small monastic body might have been estabhshed here in 

 connection with the Bath Abbey ; in confirmation of which 

 it should be mentioned that there is a well near the Church- 

 yard wall, though now covered up, known as the Monk's 

 well. The small turret originally contained two bells with 

 Latin inscriptions on them, being invocations to St. Peter 

 and the Virgin, these being the tutelary saints of the Abbey 

 Church of Bath, and of this Church. In the Chancel 



