any

the kind ; Worcester presents a slight approximation in its Transitional work at the west end of the nave, but none at all in the fully developed Lancet of the choir. Consequently, the Brecon churches, though exhibiting most beautiful specimens of the Lancet style, exhibit it in its usual form familiar in other parts of England, without of the peculiarities which might have been expected in a Somersetshire, Monmouthshire, Glamorganshire or Pembrokeshire building.

The north side of the choir, that namely which was exposed to view, the conventual buildings lying to the south, presents a series of lancets, which are divided externally into couplets by the buttresses, the east bay alone containing three. Internally they form a continuous range of eleven arches, being, though not very rich, one of the finest compositions of the kind with which I am acquainted. On the south side are only four lancets in its eastern portion, the remainder being all blank wall. The string beneath stops just west of the windows. There is a good double trefoiled piscina, and there has been a range of sedilia to match, but only one and part of another remain, the rest being blocked by a strange modern monument. To the south there is no sign of a chancel arch, a feature which must have been very conspicuous both at Chichester and Winchelsea.

The nave has at present a north aisle, but a little examination will show that such was not the case originally. A blank wall divides the eastern portion of the nave from what now seems to be a kind of vestry to the north of it. In this wall on the nave side is a corbel, possibly connected with the roodloft. On the other side is an Early English piscina, double and trefoil, but plainer than that in the choir, clearly in situ. An Early English

a

7 Strange indeed it is; à gentleman in a large wig appears to be

à addressing a discourse with some oratorical gesture to a couple in bed, who however take no heed to him whatever. The gentleman in bed appears to be himself lecturing out of a book, while his lady lifts up her hand in a silencing and reproving manner. Surely a famous series in Punch must have been derived from this grand work of art.

string runs along the north wall of this building, and some little way down the aisle.

It then suddenly stops at a great break in the masonry, and suddenly reappears at the west end of the nave, under the great west window, of which only the lower part of the jambs remain, but not at the west end of the aisle. On the other hand, the arcade which stood between the nave and the north aisle was certainly Decorated. This arcade has been destroyed, but two of its responds remain, one at the east end, the other built up again in the wall, removed probably from the west end, whither its place is distinctly visible. These are of the common octagonal form with moulded capitals. Of the same style is the large doorway, or rather gateway, on the north side, which, as there was no doorway in the west front, must always have been the principal entrance. It is round-headed with the wave-moulding, reminding one of the outer arch added to the famous Norman porch at Malmesbury. On the north side are two doorways, the signs of one or two windows, and a singular oblong opening which clearly went through the wall. Whether a cloister joined the church here is not quite clear, as the monastery seems to have contained another away from the church, but some portions of the building seem to have joined the choir.

The inference from these appearances is that the piscina marks the site, and the Early English string on the north wall the extent westward, of a small chapel, contemporary with the original nave and choir, which in the fourteenth century was carried out westward so as to form a regular north aisle to the nave.

At the same time, or possibly somewhat earlier, the present east window of five lights of simple Arch tracery must have been inserted. The general effect very much resembles that at Chichester, but there the lights are distinct lancets, and the outer one on each side is cinquefoiled. In the chapel or vestry now gabled to the north is one like that in the nave aisle of the Priory Church.

No other alteration of any consequence seems to have

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As a

taken place during any period of good architecture; but it may be worth while to point out the stalls in the choir. They are singularly poor in execution, but are evidently intended exactly to reproduce ancient models. They probably date from about the time of the Restoration.

of the condition of the church I will only say that it is one singularly unpleasing and perplexing for the purposes of the antiquary, who is continually tempted to wish that it were either in habitable repair or else an entire ruin. At present it exhibits a strange combination of the two. The choir is roofed, doubly roofed, as its temporary adaptation as the parish church of Llanfaes appears to have brought upon it an inroad of pews and an additional plaster ceiling. The remainder is unroofed, except that a vestry has been constructed out of a portion of the small chapel at the north-east of the nave. respond and some other fragments have been built up, the appearances are at first sight somewhat puzzling. Indeed the general appearance of the whole nave is not a little so. It has not been fairly ruined ; simply unroofed, and then left to take its chance; but a Procrustean

a process of pulling down walls and building up windows has reduced it to an uniform height all round. Entering an enclosure of this sort by a doorway, which, as I before intimated, is of unusual size, the feeling is by no means like that of entering a church or other building in an ordinary ruined state; it feels more like a sort of anomalous cloister attached to the choir.

I feel sure that a good many of those who accompanied me round the building, learned then for the first time that it was really the nave of the church.

We must now make our way to the higher parts of the town to investigate the building which gives Brecon its chief claim to a high place among our archæological towns, and whose character and history will require it to be examined in as minute and technical a manner as possible.

§ III.-St. John's PRIORY CHURCH. Brecon Priory Church is the noblest example of a class of which a good many instances occur in Wales. The class I mean is one of massive cruciform churches with central towers, whose high roofs and gables invariably produce a picturesque external outline, but which are almost always lacking in external ornament, whatever they have bestowed on them in that way being reserved for the interior. Llanbadarn-fawr is the church which always occurs to me as the type of the class, as an aisleless building of considerable size, combining the two characteristics of an unsurpassed majesty of outline and a lack of ornament bordering upon rudeness. And the idea of Llanbadarn always suggests to me that of Leonard Stanley, in Gloucestershire, as essentially a kindred building, though it is somewhat less massive and by no means so devoid of ornament. But the same type occurs in buildings both of greater and of less pretensions than these two. Llanddew, in the immediate neighbourhood of Brecon, is at once felt as exhibiting the

general conception of Llanbadarn on the very plainest and humblest scale, but with a justness of outline not surpassed by any church of the class. The Priories of St. Dogmael's and Haverfordwest, as far as can be made out from their scanty remains, must have been buildings of the same class, but with a far greater amount of internal ornament. The still scantier remains of Pill Priory, near Milford, may perhaps justify us in referring it to the same class. Of Ewenny, Coyty and Coychurch, I unfortunately cannot speak. At Crickhowel we find a church approaching to the same general notion, but of diminished massiveness, and modified by the addition of aisles; but at Brecon we find the genuine conception of Llanddew and Llanbadarn carried out on a scale of size and magnificence approaching to that of a cathedral or abbey church.

8

8 See Archæologia Cambrensis, 1852, p. 165.