318 



NOTES ON THE PARISH CHURCH AND SAXON 

 CHURCH, BRADFORD-ON-AVON. 



By A. W. N. Bukdee, F.S.A. 

 [Bead at the Bradford-on-Avon Meeting of the Society, 1909]. 



The Parish Church was built in the first half of the twelfth 

 century, and originally consisted of a nave and chancel. Some 

 think there was a Norman west tower, and that the staircase 

 turret, which has been very much restored, belonged to it, as from 

 its position, access to the tower can only be obtained from the small 

 platform corbelled out into the nave, just under the roof. There 

 are windows of the Norman period in nave and chancel, and 

 Norman buttresses to both, and from the proportions of the Church 

 it is evident that Bradford at that early time was a place of some 

 importance. 



The next century — the thirteenth, or Early English period — is- 

 not represented in the Church, unless the figures under the 

 canopied tombs in the chancel can be ascribed to this period, but 

 the canopies are later. 



In the succeeding century — the fourteenth — Bradford was, we 

 know, rising in prosperity, and — as we might expect — the Church 

 was not forgotten, for we find the chancel was lengthened by about 

 one-third of its length. 



In the fifteenth century, as we generally find in town Churches, 

 a considerable enlargement took place. The town, owing to the 

 woollen trade, a most important industry in the country, was in- 

 creasing in prosperity, and amongst the families who left their 

 mark upon the Church were the Horton and Hall families. A 

 north aisle was added to the nave and its history is the history of 

 not a few of the aisles to our English parish Churches, viz., that 

 it was originally a chantry chapel or chapels. 



Reginald Halle, by a deed in the year 1420 provided for the 

 endowment of a chaplain in the Church of the Holy Trinity of 



