ON ARCHITECTURAL ANTIQUITIES IN MONMOUTHSHIRE. No. III. It is now a good while—so long indeed that I am afraid most readers of the Archæologia Cambrensis may have entirely forgotten the fact-since I wrote two papers on Architectural Antiquities in Monmouthshire. Those who are curious in such matters will find them in the numbers for April and July, 1851; and they will perceive that they relate to the buildings of the southern part of the county, lying between Newport, Chepstow, and Usk. These had been preceded by one on Chepstow Priory Church, which, though not so numbered, may be considered as the first of the same series. My journey to and from Brecon on the occasion of the last Annual Meeting, enables me to add a fourth (or third) number; and as the same tour embraced the magnificent ruins of Llanthony, I may be supposed to have materials ready for another. But this must, whenever it is executed, be a more minute and technical account than I can undertake at present. Following out the same principle of taking the spring out of the year, I do not mean to say anything about Raglan Castle. Everybody has seen enough of it to point out its distinguishing peculiarities, and I have not seen enough to do very much more. These restrictions leave me for my present subject two or three sadly mutilated monastic and castellated remains, and some half dozen small and plain parish churches. But even out of this restricted allowance, I hope I shall be able to extract something not altogether profitless. MONASTIC CHURCHES.-In most of the market-towns of Monmouthshire, as in some other parts of South Wales, the principal or only church will be found to be one which was at once the parish church of the town and the church of an attached monastery. The first result of this union of character has commonly been that the building has originally been one, which, though seldom . exhibiting the full conventual type, still greatly surpassed its neighbours in size and architectural design. " Its second result has been that the dissolution of the monastery has often involved the partial demolition or ruin of the building. I do not know how far it may be a case of the Goodwin Sands and Tenterden steeple, but certainly in Monmouthshire at least-more western regions are less guilty-we may add a third characteristic, namely, that what the sixteenth century had spared, the nineteenth has laboured with a most perverse diligence to disfigure. Monmouthshire contains four churches of the class, Chepstow, Usk, Monmouth, and Abergavenny. On Chepstow I poured out my indignation three years ago. Usk, though not immaculate, may come off lightly compared with the other three. Of Abergavenny and Monmouth I have now to speak. ABERGAVENNY.—At the former place one can hardly bring oneself to think about antiquities at all. Blorenge and Skirrid and the Sugar Loaf might almost blind one to the beauty of far nobler buildings than Abergavenny could ever have boasted; and town buildings could never, so thoroughly as Tintern and Llanthony, have themselves become part of the landscape. In very truth I myself on one occasion walked some way out of the town without sketch-book, paper, or pencil, and consequently can give no account of a little church which I found at the foot of Blorenge, and of which, as I have but a very sorry map before me, I am by no means sure even of the name, though I suspect it to be Llanfoist. I That I have comparatively little to say of the Priory Church of Abergavenny is, I must most distinctly observe, the fault neither of Thomas nor of Oliver Cromwell. It is a large cross church, which appears to have remained tolerably perfect till the not very distant period which converted the nave into its present likeness. The outer walls, on the north side certainly—the south I do not so well remember—are original, but the whole interior has been gutted, spoiled of its arcades, and converted into one of the most astonishing preaching-houses which it has ever been my lot to enter. The presbytery with its aisles, the transepts, and central tower, are in a fair condition, and would amply deserve a monograph. It is not however at my hands that this desideratum is likely to be supplied; their artistic wealth is owing to the sculptor, not to the architect; and I must leave to some one better versed than myself in that branch of archæology the work of technically describing a fine series of tombs and a colossal figure of Jesse. The choir occupies its old position under the tower; to the east is a presbytery of three bays with aisles attached to the two western ones. The transepts project very little beyond their level, but having high roofs, and being very nearly as high as the presbytery, they produce a good cruciform effect. The aisles have compass roofs of medium pitch; so that the effect from the north-west is rather picturesque. The east end has had a parapet running round in front of the gable for defensive purposes, just as in Brecon Priory. The tower is a plain embattled structure, with a square stair-case turret at the north-west angle. The style is Decorated, with the insertion of some large Perpendicular windows; there remains however in the north aisle an excellent example of the former style, three lights, an Intersecting skeleton, filled up partly with Geometrical, partly with Foil patterns. The lantern-arches are somewhat remarkable; those opening into the transepts have discontinuous imposts, but below them is a sort of a band, with a Decorated ornament;-I think the ball-flower. The other pair spring from corbels resting on heads; one is clearly Edward III., with a Bishop opposite to him, but as one cannot carry in one's head the portraiture of all the prelates of Llandaff so readily as of the kings of England, I cannot profess to identify him farther than that by his date I 1 When we visited Abergavenny, we certainly took Mr. Freeman's “Jesse," at the first glance, for the tomb of the Giant Despair,--and on more mature reflection, for a figure of St. Christopher, accidentally recumbent.-- EDD. ARCH. CAMB. conceive him to be John de Egleshill. Queen Philippa exists also, but so mutilated that she must be guessed at from her husband. The presbytery is divided from its aisles by, arches with discontinuous imposts and the wavemoulding But little remains of the conventual buildings. A few fragments are built into an adjoining modern house, but there is nothing of any architectural character. The buildings occupied the south side. MONMOUTH.-At Monmouth I have to record destruction still more complete than at Abergavenny. I do not know how its component parts ought to be divided between the devastators of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries; but certain it is that all that now remains is a lofty tower and spire attached to the west end of a most unsightly modern church. This steeple is more remarkable for its geographical position than for anything else; it is tall and handsome; but as it is quite plain, and as the spire rises unconnectedly within the parapet, without either broaching or flyingbuttresses, it would not be thought much of in Northamptonshire. How rare spires are to the west of Monmouth I need not say; and except in the ribs at its angles, it does not seem to have borrowed much from the spires of Gloucestershire, which are most commonly of the broach form, though very slender. Living in that county, I naturally know much less of its churches than of those of Sussex or Pembrokeshire; of those that I have seen, that of Slymbridge, in quite another part, has most of the general effect of this of Monmouth, though on a smaller scale. The most remarkable thing in the tower is the four-light west window, an excellent example of transition from Flowing to Perpendicular tracery. I described and engraved it in my Essay on Tracery (p. 286, pl. 79), from a drawing of Rickman’s, who, I am sorry to say, has, as in several other cases, led me into some inaccuracies. A little observation of this tower will show that the church to which it was originally attached must have been one of very considerable pretensions. A pair of pilasters with chevroned strings remain to testify that the tower was built up against a tall, and probably somewhat rich, Norman west front. This suggests the idea that the old church, after this addition, had two towers, according to the plan on which I have already enlarged when treating of Malmesbury and Leominster. The conventual buildings are more extensive than at Abergavenny. There is an extensive fragment on the north side, late Perpendicular, of two stories with an oriel window. This, which is now used as a school, is popularly called Geoffrey of Monmouth's study; and I excited some indignation in the mind of the schoolmistress by my unwillingness to believe that, barring some alterations within her own memory, the building stood just as it did in the time of Henry the First. I suggested a correction of the numeral into Eighth; but in vain. After all it is only poetical justice that so diligent a setter forth of myths as Geoffrey should himself become a subject for the mythopæic faculty of others. PARISH CHURCHES, -Of smaller churches I find I examined eight. Six of these have towers, two are without. These two latter are the earliest of the number, one being St. Thomas' Over-Monnow, at Monmouth, a Norman structure, the other the parish church of Llanthony, a Transitional one. St. Thomas', though very much injured by so-called restoration, still remains a very good specimen of a small Norman church, medium in point of enrichment. Llanthony is a very interesting little building, built in the peculiar style of the neighbouring abbey, so that I shall reserve it in order to treat them together. Both these churches consist of a chancel and nave only; such is the case also with four out of the six others, namely Llansoy, Llanfihangel-Crugcorney, Llangattock-juxtaUsk, and Llanvapley. Of the others Raglan has a chapel attached to the north of the chancel, while LlandeiloBertholey has a very extraordinary arrangement which I must describe more at length. The quasi-cruciform shape, common in the southern part of the county, I did a |