Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 2.djvu/132

110 tained being estimated at upwards of £90,600. In less than six hours it consumed no less than 250 houses of the principal inhabitants, (which must have been of wood) as well as "the ancient and collegiate church of St. Mary, into which as a place of safety the distracted inhabitants had thrown the most valuable goods so short a time would permit them to remove." The origin of the fire is unknown, but it is said to have been communicated to the church by means of some partially burnt articles which were deposited there for safety. The eastern portion of the building was fortunately saved, though nothing but bare and smouldering walls remained of the tower, nave, and transept, and thus the work of Thomas Beauchamp lasted exactly three hundred years, having been completed in 1394 and destroyed in 1694. Commissioners were appointed by the Crown to superintend and direct the rebuilding of the church; and it appears that an idea was at one time entertained of placing the work in the hands of Sir Christopher Wren. If this were so, the design was for some reason abandoned, as Sir Thomas Wilson was selected to erect the new structure; and to him must be attributed the censure and the praise which the fine proportions but incongruous detail of this singular building have so frequently and so loudly called forth. In one of the volumes of plans and drawings by Sir Christopher Wren in All Souls College Library, at Oxford, is a design (an elevation and a perspective view) for rebuilding the church at Warwick, it is however totally different from the present building.

"In the wall, on the south side of the choir, near the altar, or holy table, are four sedilia, not graduated, but on a level; the canopies do not project, but are merely recessed, and correspond in design so as to form a continuation of the panel-work with which the lower part of the choir is surrounded; the arches of the panel-work are foliated and cusped, and the design is finished by an embattled cornice. Eastward of the sedilia is a piscina." This is a valuable specimen of early Perpendicular panelling, and shews that the change of style rapidly introduced this corresponding change of ornament.

The vestry with the sacristy over it, and the chapter-house adjoining, appear to be all of the same age with the choir. Several of the ancient monuments were destroyed in the fire, but a record of them is preserved by Dugdale; the very fine one of Thomas Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, (the founder of the choir,) and his lady, still remains in the centre of his building, with the effigies of the Earl and Countess recumbent on an altar-tomb; it has been engraved in Dugdale's Warwickshire, Gough's Sepulchral Monuments, Nichols' Description of the Beauchamp Chapel, and Blore's Monumental Remains. Of the remarkable memorial which portrays the second Thomas Beauchamp, who died 1401, and his lady, an admirable representation has been recently given in Waller's Series of Monumental Brasses.

In the description of the church, it is remarked that the choir, which