Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 1.djvu/252

234 with this feeling we invite our friends and correspondents to communicate drawings and descriptions of such remarkable and interesting monuments, ecclesiastical or civil, as may come under their observation.

The subject of the present paper can hardly be said to be an existing monument. Shobdon is a pretty village in Herefordshire, a few miles to the north-west of Leominster, the property of Lord Bateman. The ancient church was pulled clown, (for what reason is totally unknown,) about the middle of the last century (in 1753), to give place to a new building, in which the old tower seems to have been preserved, though now almost hidden by the modern improvements. The old edifice appears to have been one of the most remarkable Norman churches in the island, and the late Lord Bateman was so struck with the singularity of its sculptured ornaments, that he caused the three principal arches to be carefully preserved and re-erected in his park, where they still remain.

The original church of Shobdon, to which these remains belonged, was built about the year 1141, previous to which the only ecclesiastical building at Shobdon was a chapel of St. Juliana, constructed of wood, and dependant upon the neighbouring church of Aymestrey. Oliver de Merlimond, a Herefordshire knight, obtained the manor of Shobdon of the powerful lord of Wigmore, Roger de Mortimer, and having bought of the parson of Aymestrey his ecclesiastical rights over the district, he founded there a small priory, and built the edifice of which we are speaking to serve as the priory church. The fate of his monastic establishment was somewhat eventful; amid the feuds of the border the monks were driven from one spot to another until they settled at Wigmore and grew into a famous abbey.

The remains of Shobdon church in their present state, which are interesting only as beautiful specimens of Norman ornamental sculpture, consist of three arches with their various appendages, and appear to have been reconstructed with tolerable exactness. The middle arch, which is much larger than the two others, was probably the one which