By 0. H. Talbot, 



15 



mutilating 1 tlie Renaissance doorway, which had been previously 

 crippled ; so that, when we discovered it, it was not practicable to 

 retain it, in situ, and therefore I have had it taken down and the stones 2 

 placed in the sacristy. Fortunately, I have other almost identical 

 doorways 3 in situ. In the centre of the north side of the chapter- 

 house Sir William Sharington inserted a fireplace, 4 which appears to 

 have been a fine one, but it has been so deliberately destroyed that 

 its design cannot be recovered. It appears to have had a projecting 

 hood, supported by caryatid figures, standing on pedestals. A head 

 of a female caryatid figure was found amongst the loose rubbish of 

 the floor, and other fragments of Renaissance work were discovered, 

 but not enough to recover the design of the fireplace. It is evident 

 that, when Sharington inserted this fireplace, he must have removed 

 the original stone seat, in that part of the building, and it was 

 probably then that the responds of the transverse arches were 

 carried down to the floor, but the angle shafts 5 were carried down 

 by Ivory Talbot in the last century. 



The windows that were removed, at the latter date, from 

 the chapter-house and sacristy, were of the sixteenth century 



1 The cornice was ruthlessly chopped away, and, where not so mutilated, was 

 as fresh as if newly-worked. 



2 Many of these are mediasval worked stones re-used. 



3 Three in number, on the north side of the courtyard. 



4 A conjecture of mine (Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xii., p. 225), founded on the 

 apparent omission of the string-course, that the seat of the abbess was in this 

 position, falls to the ground, as the string-course proves to have been removed in 

 the sixteenth century. I expected that we should find the remains of a sixteenth 

 century fireplace, on account of masonry, at the back, projecting into the slvpe, 

 and also the base of the chimney remaining above. The fireplace was contracted 

 before it was destroyed. 



5 The base stones of these angle shafts were cut back to the size of the shafts, 

 and other stones were added below, to continue the shafts down to the floor. That 

 this was done by Ivory Talbot is shown by the fact that a plinth, with which he 

 finished the walls at the bottom, is worked on these stones. This seems to show 

 that some part of the stone seat remained to his time. On the other hand, the 

 responds, continued down by Sharington, were cut, to receive Ivory Talbot's 

 plinth. We could not retain the plinth, as it crossed the remains of the fireplace, 

 but we left the angle shafts, thus lengthened down, to tell their own tale. 



