NORMAN REMAINS FOUND AT

SEPHTON

CHURCH.

The Norman capital found in 1896 outside the northern wall of the churchyard of Sephton, proves to be of exceptional interest for the decipherment of the structure that preceded the earliest portions of the present building, which belong to the style usually called "Decorated." The capital was found in a pile of debris from the ancient schoolhouse, which stood within the churchyard, to the

north of the church, and which was taken down about eight years ago. In the first place, its style enables us to date the Norman church with some accuracy as about 1170. The fragment has been re-used for a building stone, and the upper surface has been set (as the weathering shows) as the face of the ashlar, the projection of the upper member of the abacus having been cut away at each side, so as to square the stone, which was then set in the wall with the capital turned inwards and lying on its side.

The capital, as we find it at present, is adapted for a single shaft. There is no trace of mitreing of the abacus moulding at the sides that would indicate that it formed part of a clustered pillar or respond, composed of three or more shafts, though the paring down at the sides may possibly have removed some such indications. The probability is that it was from the first made as the capital of a single wall pillar, the rear part of the stone being left square and set in the wall. The abacus is square, and the first member of it is a flat vertical one, below which is a scotia or hollow moulding, slightly undercut. The third member is a plain bead moulding.

This forms the front of the abacus. On the proper right of the capital the hollow and bead are not continued, but are changed for a nail-head ornament of seven pyramidal nailheads. Below the abacus is a small square member, and below this the square is brought down to the round necking, which is broken away, by four large leaves springing from it, each terminating in a depressed ogee form, which at each point is curved again to right and left into a small volute. In the space between the bell moulding and the large leaves are set small lozenge-shaped and triangular leaves, clearly and boldly cut, completing the foliated ornament of the capital.

These features are minutely detailed, because they appear to give good evidence of date. The slightly undercut hollow mould, the conventional yet flowing lines of the large leaves, and the decorative suggestion of the smaller ones, combine to show the coming influence of the early pointed style, and to place this capital within the period of the transition from Norman to the Pointed style. Capitals of similar type are to be found, with slightly later features, in Furness Abbey; also, with a further development, at Cartmel Priory, circa 1188.

If, as is probable, this capital was made for a single column, and not for a grouped or clustered one, its use would be adapted either for a wall arcade or it could have formed a dividing column between a group of windows. The former is its most probable purpose, as windows and doorways were most commonly furnished with nook shafts, set in the re-entering angles of the orders or recessings of the arches. In either case, the presence of this capital would indicate a church of considerable richness of decorative detail. There is reason to think that part of the foundations of the church tower are Norman, and if this Norman church had a tower, wall arcades would not be used at the west end. They would be appropriate to the exterior of the chancel, at the east end, or to the internal side walls of the nave and chancel, at their lower stage. Some further evidence of the elaborate decoration of the Norman church is to be found in the fragments of string courses, with the star ornament, built into the tower and south aisle of the existing structure. The discovery of the foundations of a cross wall, a few feet to the westward of the chancel screen, most likely indicates the eastward extent of the Norman church, which was extended by lengthening the

chancel in the fourteenth century, and subsequently further extended in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.

There are also indications on the tower that the south side of the church was without an aisle until the latest alteration, and that the external wall was on the line of the present south arcade. Thus it is possible that a portion of the south Norman wall remained, with fourteenth century alterations, until the latest rebuilding, and that this was the position of the arcade to which the capital belonged; and during the fifteenth or sixteenth century, when the present south aisle was added, it was used for wall ashlar in building the schoolhouse.

Until further investigation is made, the dimensions and plan of the Norman church are to a great extent conjectural, but their indications may be more fully discussed when the whole architectural history of the structure is properly considered.

EDWARD W. Cox.

NOTES ON THE PARISH CHURCHES

OF WIRRAL.

By Wm. Fergusson Irvine.

Read 19th December, 1895.

ONE often hears the question asked, "When

Ο

"was such-and-such a church built?" and one always feels tempted to reply, "It was not built, it grew." The questioner evidently expects to hear a clear and succinct account, how some Lady Bountiful of a bye-gone age supplied the funds for the building of the particular church, much as we see it now, and at the same time presented it with lands sufficient to maintain a priest. Among the ten thousand old parish churches of England there are a few of which such a plain and definite history can be given, but in by far the greater majority of cases, the story of the foundation is lost in the blue distance of the ages.

If we wish to think of the beginning of one of our parish churches, we must at once put from our minds any picture resembling what we constantly see to-day, a church rising in a few months, complete in all its parts, nave, chancel, transepts, even to clerestory and tower. In its place we must conjure up a vision of a little wattle and daub structure, standing in its croft beside the