1 



18 • Not ps on Recent Discoveries at Lacoch Abbey. 



some very good Perpendicular work has come to light, bearing the li 

 arms of the Hungerforcl family, and also, on shields, the sickle a 

 badge of the same family ; so that it is evident that one of the 1 

 Hungerfords was a benefactor. Very probably it may have been 

 Walter, Lord Himgerford, who was lord of the hundred of \ 

 Chippenham and of the manors of Sheldon, Lowden, and Rowden. n 



It is noticeable that, in the vaulting of the south walk of the o 

 cloister, occurs the shield of Heytesbmy, flanked by sickles, which a 

 may have reference to the same Walter, Lord Himgerford. Above I 

 this Perpendicular stonework of the lavatory, the back of the larger t 

 arched recess is filled with a very interesting fresco painting, repre- 1 

 senting the abbess, in her robes and carrying her crozier, kneeling ' t 

 to a saint who is a bishop, probably St. Augustine, 1 who is holding ] 

 up one hand in benediction. The whole scene is represented as ] 

 passing in a garden. In the smaller recess is another fresco, in a ] 

 very shaky state, which apparently represents a female saint, the i 

 only part that is well preserved being the head of a crozier. There i 

 will be much difficulty, I am afraid, in keeping up this second 

 fresco when the unblocking is carried further. A number of 

 fragments that we found seem to show that the front of the lower 

 part of the lavatory was ornamented with narrow Perpendicular 

 panelling, but it is not easy to make out the whole design. The i 

 whole was walled up in the sixteenth century. 



It has been assumed, too hastily, by various writers, that the letter ] 

 E, in the vaulting of the south walk of the cloister, refers to the 

 foundress and first abbess, Ela Longespee. It more probably refers to 

 the abbess, Elen cle Montefort. We found the letters E and M, the 

 initials of that abbess, in the spandrils of a fireplace of the fifteenth 

 century, inserted in an Early English wall, under the present hall, 

 which fireplace had been walled up. I may here mention that 

 another abbess, of the de Montefort family, is to be added to the 



1 The nuns were Augustinian canonesses. There was a figure of St. Augustine 

 in glass, in a similar attitude of benediction, in the abbey, in 1684, which 

 Dingley has sketched. He notices " some obliterated paintings and inscriptions " 

 on the walls of the cloister, of which there is not much chance of finding any 

 traces now, as they will have been destroyed, by re-plastering, in the last century. 



