MOORLAND AND BOEDER CHUECHES IN DEYON. 
413 
chapel on the south side, known as the "Drake aisle," evidently 
belong to this period, and from the character of the masonry, and 
the existence of a blocked up Early English arch on the north side 
of the chancel, were parts, I think, of a cruciform church, founded, 
as conjectured, by the Mewi family. The plan of this little Early 
English church must have corresponded very nearly with the 
original and somewhat earlier church at South Brent, which I 
shall briefly describe hereafter, and probably, with a number of 
other ecclesiastical buildings on the borders of the moor, built 
during or prior to the thirteenth century. 
The nave, south aisle, transept, and tower at Meavy were 
erected in the fifteenth century. I find a record of a chapel to 
St. Matthew, Meavy, being licensed November 23rd, 1433, and 
this I presume to have been the existing transept. All the roofs 
are of the waggon type, in a hopeless state of decay. Having 
professionally to examine them, and being most anxious to preserve 
them if possible, I just tapped a rib and boss here and there, when 
they crumbled to dust immediately. 
The chancel and transept roofs were indifferently patched up a 
few years ago, and at the same time the windows were glazed with 
coloured and other glass in the most painful manner. There are 
some very curious bosses in the roof over the Drake aisle. One 
represents a woman's head with a mouse coming out of her ear, 
which the rector considers the emblem of " cunning leaving the 
brain." There is another of a lion, with his tail curled up, and 
another of a dying deer, with his head turned back. Then again 
in the easternmost rib of the roof is a head of the Saviour, with a 
crown of thorns. 
There is a rood turret on the north side. In the tower — which 
is a well proportioned granite structure, with pinnacles on an em- 
battled parapet — there are six bells, which at present are not rung, 
one being crazed and another broken in pieces. These are about to 
be recast. 
In the churchyard are one or two very curious epitaphs. Here 
is one from the tombstone of a family whose members died at the 
respective ages of 88, 94, 29, and 16 — 
" Our life is but a winter's day ; 
Some only breakfast, and away; 
Others to dinner stay, and are full fed — 
The oldest man but sups, and goes to bed. 
Large is his debt who lingers out the day ; 
Who goes the soonest has the least to pay." 
