VII.-ON THE EXCAVATIONS NOW IN PROGRESS AT FOUNTAINS ABBEY. A Paper read before the Yorkshire Architectural Society, at a Meeting held at Skipton-in-Craven, May 31st, 1854; in continuation of one read before this Society at Ripon, June 17th, 1851. By JOHN RICHARD WALBRAN. In concluding the Paper which I read before you on this subject, at our meeting at Ripon, I was induced to express a hope that I might be enabled to offer a continuation of it, "at some future and not far distant re-union." The importance of the works that have been prosecuted at Fountains since that period, will, I think, justify me in endeavouring to give you some report of them on the present occasion, and more especially since the excavation of the Conventual Church, which has so long been an object of speculative interest to the antiquaries and architectural students of this country, is now realized and completed. The general result is, that though, as regards the discovery of particular objects of interest or curiosity, the work has not fulfilled the anticipations of those who had some reason to entertain them, yet many facts have been, both directly and inferentially, elicited, and the general appearance of the building has been developed and improved to such a high degree, that to any one who has not visited it, any description would seem exaggerated. The Lady Chapel, in particular, has acquired such additional grace and elegance of outline, and amplitude of dimension, that I know no building of that date that can be said to exceed it. I will I will not trouble you with a recital of the information that was gained by the removal of the rubbish around the south and eastern sides of the Lady Chapel and contiguous parts of the passage from the abbot's house to the church, since they have been already published in my "Guide" to the building. speak now only of the Conventual Church, in which the rubbish varied in depth from little more than twelve inches, in the middleof the choir, to about three feet, in the nave. The whole mass appeared to have been disturbed-probably during Mr. Aislabie's "improvements" in the last century-so that, unfortunately, whatever objects were found detached among it, could not be, generally, assigned to their original positions. In the excavation of the abbot's house, it was otherwise; wherever an object had fallen, there it was found. There needed not, indeed, this intrusion to disturb the last vestiges of evidence that might have been left; for now it has become evident that the spoliation, after the dissolution of the house, had been conducted with no ordinary K.- VOL. II. wantonness and avarice. The stalls, screens, and other fittings had apparently been used, as was the case at Roche Abbey, to make fires for melting the lead; for here and there we found heaps of ashes-nay, in the nave, part of the furnace where the operation had been conducted. All the glass had been removed from the windows, so that no more than a handful has been found. The large slabs had been torn from the graves and removed; even the greater portion of the paved tile-floor had been taken up; the very graves had been ransacked in search of valuables or treasure, if we may judge from the condition of such as were accidentally observed, and the quantity of bones mingled with the rubbish. The destruction of the pavement is especially to be regretted; not only because it was reasonably expected that a large portion of it might have been suffered to remain, but because we have record evidence that it was, originally, of a peculiar character, now seldom to be observed. It was, throughout the church, the work of Abbot John de Cancia, in the early part of the thirteenth century, and of a style usually called Geometrical; that is to say, that the pattern or device was not formed, as in after days, by stamping each tile with a part or the whole of a design, but by the combination of a number of tiles of several shapes and colours, as in the altar platform here, which was indeed a portion of this identical work. I apprehend, however, from some fragments that were found, that the whole of the work was not of an equally rich and elaborate character, and that it had undergone extensive alterations in after days. The process of excavation was commenced at the south end of the Lady Chapel. This place was not used for the general services of the church; but was divided, by a high wooden screen that ran, longitudinally, down the centre, and by others that were joined to it at one end and the eastern wall at the other, into nine apartments or chapels, in each of which was an altar, dedicated to some particular saint, at which daily prayers were said for the souls of certain persons deceased, who had endowed a chaplain for that purpose. Of these altars, portions of six have been discovered; the rest having, no doubt, been destroyed when Mr. Aislabie erected the absurd gallery under the great eastern window. Two of them remain in tolerable perfection; but in all the cases, the covering slabs have been removed. The pavement of the chapel has been utterly destroyed, with the exception of some plain work near the south door, that had been inserted not long before the Reformation. If a conjecture might be suggested by some small fragments of pot-metal glass that were found here, some or all of the lancet windows might have retained their original glazing to the last. Of the immense quantity of glass that filled the great eastern window, it is strange to say that not one particle was observed. As, however, at the time of the Reformation, even plain glass was so costly, that it was often fixed in wooden frames, and removed from the windows when the apartments were not in occupation, and this window had not then been erected much more than fifty years, it is very probable that this, and the rest of the glass that was marketable, was at once removed and sold. When I found that the pavement of the Lady Chapel had been thus mercilessly destroyed, and that no sepulchral memorials were to be found in its chantry chapels, I watched, with some curiosity, the removal of the rubbish between the high altar and the east window; where I sought, thirteen years ago, for the memorial of Abbot Gower, who I knew was interred in this particular spot in 1390. The search was at that time unsuccessful; but I found, within two feet of the sward, and above the level of the old pavement, the skeleton of a man, who, since his skull was decapitated and placed on his breast, must unquestionably have suffered a violent death, and have been buried here, after the dissolution of the house, and the present formation of the rubbish; and that the more decidedly, since the body laid north and south, evincing unchristian burial. Exposure to the air had, however, wrought its usual effect on this irrevocable mystery, and, with the exception of some few fragments, no part of the skeleton could be found. The choir was, necessarily, the next part that was cleared, and, singularly enough, developed little or nothing that I had not previously ascertained. Its main floor, raised two steps above that of the aisles, had been removed altogether, together with the sepulchral memorials of those who had been honoured with interment in this most sacred place. The pillars supporting the clerestory had, with the exception of some fragmentary remains of bases, been torn down not only to the ground, but to the very foundations; and worse than this, in the havoc that has subsequently taken place, no considerable fragments of the superstructure could be identified. It became evident, however, that the communication of the south aisle with the Lady Chapel had at some time been stopped, and, in the paucity of such convenience, a wooden screen had been thrown across the dividing arch, against which an altar had been placed. It had always been sufficiently evident that the screen between the high altar and the Lady Chapel had agreed, in character and detail, with that of the arcade, supported by marble shafts, still remaining around both those portions of the church; and we now only gained the additional information that the base had been cleared away, probably by Mr. Aislabie, who carried portions of the superstructure to different parts of the building, where they may still be seen. It was much more difficult to settle the long disputed question as to the intact condition of the beautiful pavement of the platform of the high altar On the one hand, it has been declared to have been merely "made up," and, therefore, valueless as an example of the general arrangement of pavements of this character and rare occurrence; on the other, respectable traditional evidence that has been afforded me tends to show that, though it has been disturbed and repaired, yet both the integrity of the design and the old arrangement were strictly preserved; and in this opinion I am, for several reasons intelligible only on the spot, strongly disposed to coincide. On each side of the high altar there has been a screen similar to that behind it, and occupying the space of one intercolumniation; but there are no traces either of the sedilia, piscina, Easter sepulchre, aumbries, or any other appurtenances that might have been enclosed within it; and so when sculptured stone and marble have perished for ever, the written record of the despoilers must alone suggest that, on high days and festivals, this most holy space was screened, on each side, by rich hangings of tapestry, and canopied with curtains of "flowered damask;" while on the altar itself was displayed such a profusion of jewelled gold and silver work as will more fitly be alluded to anon. Immediately in front of the high altar was interred, in 1315, Lord Henry Percy, of Alnwick, whose valorous feats against the Scots during the wars of King Edward I., his large acquisition of estates, and works of piety, you will find amply detailed in the Baronage of Dugdale; but the most diligent search I could institute discovered neither an indication of his monument nor of his tomb. And feeling painfully, during the removal, by rude heedless hands, of the rubbish "that weighed above his gentle dust," how the mere lapse of time tarnishes and corrodes the most brilliant acts and adventures into the unsubstantial nature of "a tale that is told," you may deem that the apostrophe of Shakespere to his descendant realized itself with an intensity it has, seldom, exercised among the most admiring audience that ever listened to its theatrical recital. "Fare thee well, great heart !— A kingdom for it was too small a bound; Is room enough: Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven! Thy ignominy sleep with thee within the grave, Equally unsuccessful was the general search for the sepulchral memorials of those many distinguished persons who, no doubt, must have been buried in the choir. It remained, therefore, only to ascertain whether the stone coffin on the north side, generally called that of Lord Percy, remained or not in its original position. When the bones of its tenant had long ago been scattered to the winds, this object might have been sufficiently absurd, if it had not proved that, as the coffin stood in its original position on the floor, it had no doubt been covered with a sculptured effigy; and that the cross-legged figure, bearing a shield charged with a lion rampant, which is remembered traditionally to have stood against the opposite wall of the aisle, was originally such a covering. This fine figure, which is now in one of the chapels of the transept, and is usually said to be that of Roger Lord Mowbray, who died in 1298, and was buried in the choir of Fountains, was, whilst standing in its old position against the wall, wantonly thrown down and broken one Sunday afternoon, about fifty years ago, by a party of drunken militiamen from Ripon. It was afterwards placed in the cloisters, and, subsequently, where it now remains. From the inconvenience of its position it is not easy of examination; but the elegant cast of the drapery, the rendering of the sinewy robust frame and form of the grim warrior, and the feeling thrown into the "supplication of the dying hour," evince that it has been the work of a masterhand during the best period of English sculpture. When the work reached the west end of the choir, it was found that the screen had been torn down to the ground. It had been of lime-stone, and built, very probably, in the century preceding the Reformation, and at the same time as the great tower; but, even as to its general outline, no definite idea could be formed, as no fragments were found during the excavation that could be reasonably supposed to have formed a portion of it. There used to be a tradition that the screen in Ripon minster was brought from hence, but this can be demonstrated to be untrue. Such transfers, however, were not uncommon at the period of the Reformation. The wooden stalls and appurtenant screens were removed from Easby Abbey to Richmond church; and in the |