Page:St. Botolph's Priory, Colchester (1917).djvu/20



ITH the exception of the nave of the church, the Priory buildings have been utterly destroyed, so that nothing of them now remains above ground, nor is it possible at the present time to excavate any part of their site, or to discover whether the bases of any walls yet exist. In Morant's time, that is to say, the middle of the eighteenth century, some walls of the claustral buildings seem to have been standing, and formed part of a brew house, but no drawings have come down to us from which any definite idea of their appearance can be gained. It is probable that great part of them was destroyed soon after the Suppression, but the church, being parochial as well as conventual, would have been preserved for this reason, or at any rate such part of it as was used by the parishioners. This would in normal cases be the nave, though there are exceptions to the rule. Anything not needed for parochial use, "deemed superfluous" as contemporary surveys have it, would be likely to be pulled down for the sake of the building materials, and it is not clear how much survived till the siege of 1648.

The following are examples of churches of Augustinian Canons the naves of which were parochial and were the only parts which survived the Suppression: Bolton and Bridlington, Yorkshire; Lanercost, Cumberland; St. Germans, Cornwall; Thurgarton and Worksop, Nottinghamshire; Waltham, Essex. "Till our unhappy civil wars," says Morant, "this church was looked upon as the chief in the town: where the Corporation resorted in their Formalities on Sundays and other public Occasions to hear the General Preacher. And the great Bell there, was that which was rung every morning and evening at four and eight o'clock. In the time of the Siege, this church suffered with most of our public edifices; being partly battered down as some say by the Royalists for fear the enemy should lodge themselves in it; or as others affirm, it was done on design by the enemy, who had a Battery levell'd that way, which last seems probable, because the South east corner is the most demolished."

The fact of the church having been the "chief in the town" 14