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Overlooking the garden in which we stand as we leave the door is the
gable end of a plain rectangular building, now cottages, but formerly
the Abbot's stables.
One more relic completes the list of the remains of the "late Abbey,"
as Leland pathetically alludes to that important establishment.
Walking across the Green we see before us an old stone porch embattled
above, and behind it a plain building of two storeys. This was the
Grammar School of Abbot Lichfield, and his inscription over the door
may still be deciphered, "ORATE PRO ANIMA CLEMENTIS ABBAT." The
schoolhouse is of timber, and has been little altered, except that the
front is spoiled by the substitution of brick for wood and plaster;
the ornamental battlement on the porch is also of recent date.
For more than a hundred years after the destruction of the noble pile
the site was used as a stone quarry, and fragments may be found in
almost all the older houses in the town, and in many farm buildings in
the neighbourhood. There is hardly an old garden near that has not
some carved stones of curious shape recognisable by the antiquary as
having once formed part of a shaft, a window, or an archway of the
proud Abbey. Of these scattered fragments the most important is the
lectern of alabaster, Romanesque in style, now, after long misuse and
neglect serving its original purpose in the church of Saint Egwin at
Norton, a village lying nearly three miles to the north of the town. A
description of this relic will be found in the last section of this
work.
The local tradition of the splendour of the Monastery is no doubt
handed down to us by Thomas Habington, the antiquary, who visited the
town in 1640. "There was not to be found," he writes, with pardonable
exaggeration, "out of Oxford or Cambridge, so great an assemblage of
religious buildings in the kingdom"!
CHAPTER V
THE PARISH CHURCHES
The two parish churches, placed together in one yard, make with the
bell tower an unusually striking group. What then would be the
feelings aroused in the spectator were the great church, a cathedral
in magnitude and splendour, still visible, rising majestically above
roofs and spires. To us the Abbey which is gone can do no more than
add solemnity to the scene which once it graced. It matters little by
which entrance we approach the churchyard, for from every side the
buildings group harmoniously; each of the steeples acting as it were
as a foil to the other: and both the spires unite in adding dignity to
the bell tower. The churchyard in Norman times would seem to have been
part of the Abbey precincts, as it is enclosed within Abbot Reginald's
wall already described, and a second wall, part of which is still
standing, divided it from the Monastery and the monastic grounds.
The Church of All Saints seems to have served, from very early times,
as the parish church. As we examine it we read, as in an ancient and
partly illegible manuscript, its long story. The restorer, more
ruthless than Age or Time, has, with the best intentions, laid his
heavy hand upon it, and obliterated much of its character and history;
but enough remains to interest us, though pleasure is now mingled with
much vain regret. In the simple Norman arch through which we pass as
we enter the nave, and perhaps the western wall with the small
round-headed windows, we find the earliest records. The slight tower
with its sharply-pointed windows and delicate spire was added,
probably supplanting an earlier and simple porch, in the time of the
Edwards. The arches and northern clerestory of the nave belong to a
rather later period when the church was found too narrow for the
increasing population; while the arches on the southern side with no
clerestory above, are probably later still. The choir and north wall
of the nave are the work of the restorer, and tell us nothing but a
tale of culpable neglect and mistaken zeal! The head of the north door
of the chancel is, however, a relic of the original building, and this
should be carefully examined. It is beautifully cut with double rows
of cusps, and is of fourteenth century workmanship. The latest Gothic
additions are the work of Clement Lichfield. To this Abbot we owe the
outer porch so deeply panelled, with its two entrance doorways, its
pierced battlements, and finely carved timber roof; to him also do we
breathe our thanks as we stand looking up at the lovely vaulting of
the Lichfield Chapel built by him in his younger days when Prior of
the Monastery. Here was Lichfield buried, and beneath the floor his
body lies; formerly a memorial brass engraved with effigy and
inscription marked the spot, but this has long since disappeared. The
inscription, however, can be read on a tablet lately erected by pious
hands to perpetuate his memory. Over the entrance we may still see the
initials of the builder carved upon an ornamental shield. The windows
are now filled with modern glass, not unworthily telling the
oft-repeated story of the "vanished Abbey." In the upper lights are
represented figures of the Virgin Mary, and of Eoves with his swine.
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New, Edmund H. - Evesham