146 



The Twentieth General Meeting. 



walls remained; and all that he could tell them was that it had stood 

 somewhere thereabouts. 



Mr. Fuller then conducted the party in a lengthened survey of 



The Church and Parvise, or Porch. 



The Rev. gentleman first proceeded round the church externally, 

 pointing out the various objects of interest. Noticing the huge flying 

 buttresses to the tower, he said those buttresses had been erected, in 

 addition to the original buttresses, before the top course of the tower 

 was built, owing to a great settling which the tower then experienced $ 

 and there was in the top course not a single crack or trace of settling. 

 He pointed out the Charnel-house, beneath the Lady-chapel, which, 

 he said, was choke-full of bones, but a portion of the house had been 

 appropriated, in the restoration of the church, to the heating appara- 

 tus. The west gate was duly noticed by Mr. Fuller. He pointed 

 out that the original door and iron-work had been preserved in the 

 restorations. The royal shield over the right-hand corner of the 

 gateway was alluded to, as indicative of the date of the tower, by 

 the number of lilies it bore, which showed it to be earlier than the 

 time of Henry the Fifth. 



The visitors then ascended to the Parvise or Town -Hall, when 

 Mr. Fuller gave a description of the church from a small plan. In 

 the course of his address, the Rev. gentleman said the church con- 

 sisted of a nave and aisles 80 feet square, and a chancel of 50 feet. 

 There was a nave, north and south aisles, the chapel of St. John 

 Baptist, the chapel of St. Catherine, the Lady-chapel, and the chapel 

 of the Holy Trinity. In one corner of the Lady-chapel was a hand- 

 some wooden screen, now converted into a choir vestry, but which 

 formerly stood in the south-east corner of the south aisle ; in its 

 original position forming the enclosure ef the Chapel of the Name 

 of Jesus, a chantry of the Garstang family, whose arms and mer- 

 chant's mark were carved on the screen. The nave was built in the 

 late Perpendicular style. It was not begun in 1513, as proved by 

 a will in the Worcester Registry, nor finished in 1522, because the 

 key-stone bore the monogram of J ohn Blake, who was not abbot till 

 1523. Some of the south windows, the Trinity chapel, and the west 



