Excursion on Thursday, August \§th. 



145 



reticulated character, and adorned with the ball- flower on the moul- 

 dings both within and without. In the central lower panel of this 

 window was, on the inner side, a rich canopy of tabernacle work, once 

 filled with a statue, in all probability of the saint to whom the 

 chantry altar was erected ; while the other blank east face of this 

 panel was carved with a fair representation, in miniature, of the 

 window itself, but less depressed in tracery, and with the addition of 

 stiff pinnacles. Unfortunately in the recent restoration of the 

 Church this unique feature has been replaced by a modern and 

 somewhat inaccurate copy, a figure of Our Blessed Lord being 

 erected inside the new canopy ; while the original outer panel is 

 placed for the present against the east wall of the aisle. In front of 

 the reading desk, hangs a piece of ancient tapestry, probably part of 

 an altar-cloth, embroidered with rows of kneeling female figures. 



The archaeologists now proceeded to Braclenstohe Priory, which — 

 unlike most monastic buildings — is set on the edge of a steep hill 

 commanding a wide view to the west and north-west. The site is 

 occupied by a farm-house, the dwelling being formed out of the 

 " King's Lodgings/'' 1 and the guest-house, a fourteenth century 

 structure, in tolerably perfect condition, the post-Heformation floors 

 and stairs, with which the great hall is cut up, being the weakest 

 points : it lies nearly north and south. The undercroft, now cellarage, 

 has been little tampered with, and is vaulted with quadripartite 

 vaulting, carried on short columns : over this is the great hall, now 

 divided into rooms and additional floors added, but still preserving 

 externally, especially on the west face, its old appearance, the spaces 

 between the buttresses containing a series of unusually long Decorated 

 windows. From the garrets can be explored the open roof, orna- 

 mented with ball-flowers, figured in Hickman's " Architecture/' In 

 one of the old rooms was a carved and painted stone chimney-piece, 

 crowned by a cornice of foliage and central bracket, recently removed. 

 At the north end of the building is a garderobe turret, approached by 



1 The charter of Henry III. to St. Peter's Gloucester, was dated from Braden- 

 stoke, A.D. 1235, and indicated the presence of the King at the Priory at that 

 date. 



