north side we can see that there is a joining running up the centre of the pillar and through the cap, as if put together at two different dates, and in the wall space above, forming the spandrel between the arches, there is an unbonded joint running all the way up to the sill of the window above. The window heads of the chapels, instead of being obtusely-pointed four-centre ones, like the other windows of the aisles, have rounded tops. This form of arch, drawn from three centres, is a sign of very late and inferior work. No doubt this work is bad, for the parapets outside, instead of terminating against the wall between the clearstory windows, are actually built so as to rise across the window-sill and finish against the glass! When we examine the junction of the south chapel with the chancel we see that the two are not bonded together, and that the chapel wall has been built up against the chancel wall, clearly showing that the two were built at different dates and that the chapel was built after the chancel.

On the south side of the sacrarium is a portion of wall, evidently modern, which helps to support the theory already mentioned. This was the doorway which formerly led into the vestry, and which was built up about the year 1872, when the present entrance was made leading out of Sir Raphe's chapel. What was the original use of this room? Some suppose that it may have been intended for a private chapel, or oratory, and others that it was "always a priest's vestry, or sacristy, and from its position very convenient for the priest to reach the altar." Canon Andrew, in 1892, showed that the doorway was just in the place where the sedilia and the piscina would have been in pre-Reformation times, and; even if of oak, instead of being recessed in the wall, either one or the other would have been placed against the wall where this

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built-up doorway now is. Secondly, he pointed out that there was no moulding round the opening. The edge of the stonework has been chamfered off in a rough and ready fashion, but there was no attempt whatever at ornament or moulding. We saw outside this vestry was an independent structure, and the evidence seems to point to the probability that it was re-erected after the Reformation. This conclusion is much strengthened by some of the parapet stones being old material used up while other parts were new, because some of the ornaments are of the Langley period, while one of the ornaments carved outside on the parapet is a mullet, the well-known charge on the Ashton coat-of-arms, and the mullet is pierced. The full significance of this mullet being pierced will be seen when I explain that the Ashtons of Middleton did not bear the mullet pierced until about the year 1664-5. At the first visitation of the heralds in Lancashire, 1533, the quarter representing Ashton is given as “Argent, on a mullet sable, an annulet of the field." This was the coat granted to the hero of Flodden, who had the mullet as above given carved on the rood screen, and to show that it was thus borne until the middle of the seventeenth century we have only to look at the brass of General Ashton in the sacrarium, where the mullet is engraved as described above, and, as the parliamentary commander only died in 1650, it is quite clear that up to that time the mullet of the Middleton Ashtons was charged with an annulet. But at the visitation of Sir William Dugdale in 1664-5, which was the last heraldic visitation held for the county, the coat allowed was: "Argent, a mullet pierced sable." This goes to prove that the pierced mullet must have been carved on the parapet of the vestry at some period after 1665, and, if so, that the present vestry was not erected until after that date.

We may suppose, then, that the Ashtons of that time, who were Puritans, wanted to add a vestry to the church, and would naturally prefer to build it in a style to match the older work; but, having no scruples about destroying all marks of Popery, they broke the doorway into the chancel at the same time, and the floor may have been excavated and laid so much lower than the level of the church floor in order to provide sufficient head room inside without raising the walls so high as to darken the windows of the chapel and chancel. The idea is confirmed by the fact that the east window is blocked up in the lower portion as if they had been compelled to partially darken it.

The men of that time, when altering or repairing any church, were likely to destroy old architecture as relics of Popery. We have an example of this in the rood screen, which I hope at some future time to deal with, and also to describe the painted glass.

The chantries may have been dismantled about this time and the vestry added afterwards. If so, the making of a doorway through the south wall of the chancel would be an opportunity for demolishing another relic of Popery, so that the disappearance of the choir piscina may be accounted for. So broken through it was, though perhaps not as supposed for the purpose of making it "convenient for the priest to reach the altar," but probably to suit the preacher, and to enable him more readily to doff the surplice and don the gown.

Considering, then, that the chapel walls are not bonded in with the chancel walls, and that the style of the chapel windows is different from everything else in the church, we can account for the disappearance of the piscinas by supposing that the chapels were probably altered or rebuilt in their present form in Puritan times.

In closing this attempt to trace the successive changes in the fabric by the light of architecture, the structural puzzles are difficult to solve. They are facts that need accounting for, and all we can do is to adopt theories that agree with the facts, so that they may be regarded as reasonable solutions. The conclusions to which the evidence leads may be stated as follows:

(1) As the south-east doorway, leading into the Ashton Chapel, and the walls of the chapel, show evidence of being earlier than the walls of the aisle, the perpendicular unbonded joint between that wall and the wall of the Hopwood Chapel must have been made when Sir Richard Ashton extended the wall southwards in 1524. Therefore that doorway, and the window over it, and the bit of good ashlar work in which they are inserted, are remnants of Langley's building, like the tower and the porch.

(2) That the two chantries were probably dismantled or rebuilt since the Reformation. Structural evidence shows that they must have been converted to their present state at a later time than the aisles and church, and one reason might be the probable necessity for taking down the east wall of the Ashton Chapel, as remarked by Canon Andrew, when the excavations were made for the vestry.

(3) As shown by the pierced mullet being used in two places as one of the ornaments on the parapet, and the position and style of the doorway leading from the sacrarium into the vestry, the vestry was a late addition to the church, which must have been built and the doorway broken through the chancel wall in Puritan times. The Ashtons were a Puritan family, and the piscina belonging to the chancel, if it were a stone one, was probably in the wall where the doorway was made, which

accounts at once for its disappearance. The flat heads of the mullioned windows agree with this idea, and the character of the stonework is no contradiction.

(4) The work done in 1524 was not a total pulling down and rebuilding of the nave. The south aisle was extended southwards from the Ashton Chapel, leaving the south wall of the chapel standing, and without disturbing the south arcade. This accounts for these arches and wall being still out of plumb, doubtless owing to the thrust of the previous roof of Langley. We have no means of knowing whether Langley's roof was a groined stone one or a wooden one. The description of it in the licence for consecration-"In tectura arte mirifica et perpolita❞—might be applicable to either. But, as I showed in my previous paper, if it was a groined stone one the thrust upon the side walls must have been very great; while if it was an open-timbered hammer-beam roof it would have to be covered with lead, as the present one is, and, however "wonderfully artistic and well finished" it might be, if there was any defect owing to its having been put together unscientifically, the weight of the lead acting on the principals would have some such effect upon the walls as stone groining, and this was probably why Langley's church required to be rebuilt so soon after his time. It was no new thing, even in the most splendid buildings, for the weight of a roof to push out the side walls. The nave of Lichfield Cathedral is a case in point. At the west end, where the walls of the nave have the support of the terminal walls of the aisles, and at the crossing, where they are stiffened by the transept walls, the nave walls are quite perpendicular, but bulge out more and more as they approach the middle of the nave. At Middleton we expect a similar thing would have happened, and the