vaulted until some years after the building of the side walls, presumably to allow the walls time to harden; but in this case the builders were not satisfied with this, but either cased the old buttresses, or perhaps entirely rebuilt them. The upper part, with buttresses and pinnacles, is of 15th century work, perhaps built when the high pitched roof was lowered to the present level, and the battlements placed to the choir and the new Lady Chapel. This was probably to save expense, Abbot Knowle having lost his chance of obtaining money in not receiving the body of King Edward II., and the church having become isolated from the old city by the digging of the "great trench." In fact S. Mary Redcliff had become the pride of the citizens, instead of the Austin Abbey. About the same time, the high pitched roof was removed, the present perpendicular window containing some beautiful 15th century glass was inserted in the space formed by the old roof, and curiously enough the centre of its arch does not accord with the centre of the arch of the Lady Chapel from the North Transept. Some few early tiles formerly remained, which may well have been a portion of the ancient floor of chapel.

The recesses for tombs at the sides seem, from the carving of the bosses, to have been formed at much the same date as the lower part of the eastern reredos of the choir, and I think it not at all unlikely the old shafts and capitals were then re-used in the southeastern bays as pedestals for figures, perhaps of the “Annunciation "-The Blessed Virgin and Two Angels. There appears to be a great similarity of work between the Elder Lady Chapel and remaining portions of Almondsbury Church of the same date; we know the Abbey possessed a manor house there, and have records of one of the Abbey officials having been killed on his way there in 1299.

I have only now to call attention to the beautiful coloured decorations upon the arcades of this chapel of which I give a sketch.

Upon observing the Cathedral plan in Britton's book it seems as if the external wall of the new aisles had been built up against the old walls of the Lady Chapel as buttresses, or rather to save building new ones on that side, and this accounts for the great depth of the recess for the Berkeley tomb. The doorway over which are the arms of Abbot Somerset, 1526, is stated by Britton to have been made in consequence of the unfinished and

impassable state of the North Transept, perhaps on account of the erection of the groining. This doorway seems to me most beautiful, on account of the light and shade of its mouldings, and the architect seems to be repeating in the 15th century work the beauty of the 13th century. I ought still to account for the rough eastern wall, but at present I confess I cannot.

There must have been a reason for placing the floor of the Elder Lady Chapel about 15 inches above the floor of the Aisles and Transepts. Perhaps it was built on the old level of the Green; or perhaps the builders discovered, after building the Elder Lady Chapel, that the foundations-thin beds of stone, with layers of clay between-were not very reliable, and in building the Choir, sank down the piers to the thicker beds of clay, which accounts for the peculiarly constructed piers and transverse arches, so as to save expense; and for the same reason the high pitched roofs were never carried out, and that to the Lady Chapel removed.

I can scarcely understand the little niche between the Transept and the Lady Chapel, but probably this chapel was built upon the old level of College Green, and to save expense of excavating a gradual incline, steps were made from the Green. (See marks of three steps in cloisters by Chapter Room, the steps to cloister door, a step in South Transept, and two steps to Elder Lady Chapel). The truth was money was necessary. First, the Lady Chapel was built as being the popular cult of the time, as we have no records of any particular relics of saints in the church. In central France I have always found the raison d'etre of most of the big churches was the acquisition of some popular relics, such as a bone of S. Denis, or the head of S. Martin. The early Normans, who were by-the-bye, adventurers of all the European nations, were not quite easy in their minds after the many murders and robberies they had committed, and therefore founded churches out of their ill-gotten gain; but that time had passed. In the 13th century, relics brought home from the East served the same purpose. The age of apses and early Norman churches, the fashion set by the Abbaye aux hommes and Abbaye aux Dames at Caen, had passed; the English ideas were again asserting themselves; Early English architecture, certainly one of the most perfect styles the world has ever seen, became the fashion, with the Saxon square ends to the churches.

PUBLIC LIBRA

ASTOR, LENUK

WILDEN HOUNDALONG

S.Katherine's Hospital. Leper Hoep of
Brightbow, Bedminster.

Sketch-plan.

S.Mary Magdalene.

Road to Redcliff & Bristol.

Brightbow Bridge.

The Guest-Ho.

North Side.

остадот

16th Century Cap.

octagons. sapare

The Hospital of St. Katherine, Brightbow, near Bristol.

BY ALFRED E. HUDD, F.S.A., HON. SECRETARY.

TOWARDS the end of February, 1887, with a few of the members of the Club, I visited the site of this Hospital, and examined the scanty remains of the buildings, then in process of demolition. Our attention had been called to their approaching fate by a letter written to the Bristol newspapers by the Rev. Ign. Grant, M.A., and by the exhibition in the window of a shop in Park street of some interesting drawings of the "Guest House" of the ancient Hospital, from sketches taken in the previous month, before its demolition had been commenced; one, of the North side of the building, by the Rev. Eric Leslie; another, of the South side, by the Rev. I. Grant. By the kindness of these gentlemen we are enabled to reproduce these views on Plate XXIII. The work of destruction-which had been commenced a few days only before we visited the site-had proceeded so rapidly that little of the structure was to be seen above ground except a few fragments of walls. At the present time not a stone remains upon the spot. It has been thought that some account of the Hospital and its history might be of interest to the Club, and Mr. John Taylor having kindly furnished me with some notes on the allusions to St. Katherine's to be found in Smyth's Lives of the Berkeleys-one of the most valuable records of our local antiquities-I purpose to supplement these with a few gleanings from other sources.

The original document from which John Smyth, of Nybley, gathered most of his information relating to Bristol historyAbbot Newland's Chronicle-although preserved at Berkeley Castle in Smyth's time, seems to have since disappeared. In the