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ALTHOUGH the present church, which was the choir of the more ancient structure belonging to the Priory, stands some distance backwards from Smithfield, there is little doubt that its front was originally on a line with the small gateway yet remaining, and that the latter indeed was the entrance from Smithfield into the southern aisle of the nave, the part of the church now entirely lost. It is useless to inquire what kind of front was here presented to the open area before it; but if we may judge of it by this gateway, and by the general style of the interior

VOL. II.

E

parts of the choir, it must have been a grand work. The gateway is of a very beautiful character, with a finely pointed arch, consisting of four ribs, each with numerous mouldings, receding one within the other, and decorated with roses and zigzag ornaments. Straight before us as we pass through this gateway are the churchyard and church, the former having around it a range of large and very dingy-looking lath-and-plaster houses, which however derive somewhat of a picturesque appearance from their gable ends, and their windows scattered about in "most admired disorder." The exterior of the church, as it here appears to us, consists of a brick tower, erected in 1628, and by its side the end of the church, from which the nave has been cut away, and the wall and large window erected to terminate the structure at this point. The foundations of the nave still lie below the soil of the churchyard some three or four feet. The wall of the latter, on the right or southern side, now faced with brick, is very ancient and of immense thickness, and formed most probably the original wall of the south aisle. On stepping into the apartments of the adjoining public-house, to which the wall now belongs, we find traces of a past very different from what we see at present. Rooms with arched ceilings, a cornice with a shield extending through two or three of them, and thus showing that they have formed but one room, and a chalk cellar below the house-all betoken that we are wandering among the ruins of the old Priory. By the side of this house is a yard, filled with costermongers and their donkeys, and surrounded by black and decayed sheds and habitations, with balconied galleries. Referring to the multitude of miserable-looking and comparatively worthless habitations that have sprung up during the decay of the Priory, Malcolm calls them so many "exhalations of lath and plaster; the mushrooms of its night:" we should say rather the fungi :-nothing can be more unwholesome than some of these places are. Here the cheery ringing sound of the hammer on the anvil guides us to ground more intelligible. The passage leads into a smith's workshop, where some of the arches of the eastern cloister (the only one of which there are any remains) appear in the opposite wall. Violence and decay have deprived these arches of all their original beauty, though not of their bold expressive character-that still remains stamped upon them. The soil here, as in almost every other part surrounding the church, has been raised several feet: thus, for instance, the spring of these arches is nearly level with the ground. Leaving this to enter another yard, of an equally unpromising appearance, we find ourselves within the east cloister. Much of this beautiful part has been lost of late years by the fall of the roof and part of the wall on one side. Climbing, however, as well as we can, over the double or treble row of great barrels which fill the entire space, we find that on the opposite or eastern wall are five arches, more or less entire, yet remaining, and one on the west. The noble character of the architecture is here still visible in the fine deep receding mouldings and the graceful span. Farther north the space is walled up with an arch, which, if original, as it appears, must have crossed the cloister. The space within, extending to the church, which was entered by a fine Norman arch still existing, includes the remainder of the cloister; and one can only lament that, as it not only possesses the arches on both sides, but the groined roof, it should be completely walled up. We had ourselves

to break a hole in another part of the wall to obtain admittance, and then to re-close it. Here the delicacy and proportion of the style, the fine finish of the groins and key-stones, and the elaborate workmanship of the many curious devices and historical subjects carved in different parts, are alone visible in their natural combination. Over this part is now built a house in a line with and joining to the tower of the church. Malcolm supposes that it was to this part of the Priory the author of the manuscript before mentioned refers when he speaks of the "more ample buildings" by which "the skins of our tabernacle were dilated." As one looks around on the still evident beauty of the architecture, and measures with the eye its dimensions (the cloisters must have been nearly fifteen feet broad, and have extended round the four sides of a square of nearly a hundred feet), we begin for the first time to have a just impression of the original magnificence of the establishment; when the Prior, the Sub-Prior, and the other Canons, in all the imposing splendour of the Roman Catholic church, came occasionally sweeping along on days of high ceremony; and when, of an afternoon, in calm and sunny weather, the inmates of the Priory might have been seen sitting each in his little pew against the windows, meditating, or conversing with his neighbour, or reading some book from the Priory library, which at least amused him with its brilliant illuminated paintings, if it possessed no better attractions. For those who desired exercise there was the pleasant green in the centre, signifying, says Wickliff, "the greenness of their virtue above others," with its single tree, which had also its symbolical explanation, for it implied to the monks "the ladder by which, in gradations of virtue, they aspired to celestial things."

The public-house and courts we have mentioned are in a lane (along which on the eastern side ran the western cloister), at the back of Duke Street, and communicating with the great Close. As we turn the corner into the latter, the immense Refectory, or Hall of the Priory, stands before us (marked J in the plan), though so modernised in its outward appearance that the most eager antiquarian would assuredly pass it unnoticed if the latter were his only guide. From the scanty notices of this building, and of the crypt that extends beneath, in such of the local historians as notice them at all, we had not anticipated finding any interesting remains. Agreeably were we disappointed. In spite of the many alterations and divisions that have been made in it at different times, it is not difficult to trace its original character, as well as its vast extent. It is now occupied as a tobacco-manufactory, and a large portion of it still forms but one apartment, roofed over with oak of the finest kind and condition. There are now two or three stories, but, after a careful examination of the general arrangement of the multitudinous timbers of the roof of the highest story, we cannot but express our opinion that the whole has been open from the first floor to the roof, and that the latter has formed one of those oaken coverings of which Westminster Hall is so magnificent an example, though most probably of a ruder character. The complicated and yet harmonious arrangement of the timbers springing from the side on the upper story, where alone the roof is unaltered-their finely arched form rising airily upward towards the centre of the building-and the vertical supports which they appear to have sent down to the floor of the hall below (the posts which characterised the halls of a very early period),—all appear to show that

there was but one story, one room; and a glorious room it must have been; measuring some forty feet high, thirty broad, and a hundred and twenty long!

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supported on four arches that still re-
main.

L. The Northern Aisle of the Choir.
M. The Southern Aisle of the Choir.
N. The Eastern Aisle of the Choir.
O. The present Parish Church, forming the
Choir of the old Priory Church.
P. The Prior's House, with the Dormitory
and Infirmary above.

F. The South Aisle, to which the existing Q. Site of the Prior's Offices, Stables, Wood

Gateway in front of Smithfield was the original entrance.

G. The Nave, no part of which or of the

Aisles now remains.

Yard, &c.

R. The Old Vestry.

S. The Chapter House, with an entrance gateway from

H. St. Bartholomew's Chapel, destroyed by T. The South Transept.

Fire about 1830.

I. Middlesex Passage, leading from Great to Little Bartholomew Close.

J. The Dining Hall or Refectory of the Priory, with the Crypt beneath.

K. Situation of the Great Tower, which was

U. The North Transept.

V. The present entrance into the Church. On the top of the plan is Little Bartholomew Close, on the left Cloth Fair, at the bottom Smithfield, and on the right Great Bartholomew Close.

A striking proof that the present intermediate ceilings and floors are not original is afforded by the immense beams or trees that cross from wall to wall, and which project a considerable height above the floor. These intermediate roofs are also so irregular, and so meanly put together, that it is tolerably evident their timbers are merely the ruins of the one magnificent cope that bent over all. No wonder the owners of such splendid apartments must have their raised dais to keep them above the throng of their humbler brethren, must dine first and be waited upon by kneeling monks, who in return have to console themselves with the reflection that the novices must in a like manner attend them. Many a scene of splendour this Hall has no doubt witnessed; many an exhibition of ecclesiastical state and profusion, such as that which Giraldus Cambrensis somewhat satirically describes in connexion with his visit to the Prior of Canterbury; where he noted at dinner sixteen dishes, a superfluous use of signs, much sending of dishes from the Prior to the attending monks, and from them to the lower tables, much gesticulation in returning thanks, much whispering, much loose, idle, and licentious discourse, and where, whilst herbs were brought to the table but not tasted, the fish of numerous kinds, roasted, broiled, fried, and stuffed, the eggs, the dishes exquisitely cooked with spices, the salt meat to provoke appetite, and the wines of almost every known kind, were all done full justice to.

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Descending now to the commencement of the low winding passage marked in the plan Middlesex Passage," but which was known in our boyish days by a more awful appellation, and one more in accordance with its then strangely wild character, we find, extending right and left under the Refectory, the Crypt, of which the passage cutting right through it forms a part. There is something about a crypt which makes it always an interesting place; the situation,—generally buried in the earth, the solemn gloom, the frequent nobleness of the architecture, above all their mysterious history-no one knowing for what purpose they were built— all combine to stimulate curiosity, however little they may satisfy it. Without desiring to express any peculiarly favourable opinion of the habits of the monks, we confess there seems something too revolting in the idea that they were erected "for clandestine drinking, feasting, and things of that kind," as stated in an author quoted by Fosbroke in his British Monachism.' Interesting as these places generally are, we doubt whether a more favourable specimen could be found than this of the once famous Priory of St. Bartholomew. Its immense length, its double row of beautiful aisles, extending throughout, and its admirable state of preservation, render this Crypt worthy of peculiar attention. Of the fine character of the architecture, as we see it when standing against the wall on the one side, and looking across the two aisles, the engraving here shown will convey the best idea. There is, it will be seen, a door at the extremity of our view; with which we have been told the tradition that generally haunts these old monastic ruins, of a subterranean way, connects itself. It has been supposed that through this door there was a communination with Canonbury at Islington. Perhaps the tradition arose, from what we have no doubt is a fact, that the door had been used by the Noncomformist ministers, who occupied the adjoining chapel during parts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as a mode of escape in cases of danger. The door, at all events, opened until lately into a cellar that extended beneath the chapel,

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