The ground was opened in the corresponding position on the north side, and here a trench was found well and truly cut in the clay, and filled with debris of sixteenth-century freestone, tile, and glass fragments, chiefly of painted work, and largely of azure blue.[28] The footing-trench was inclined at a similar angle, but instead of meeting a cross wall at east, it stopped short at the point where such a return wall should be, and this indicated that in all probability the annexe had a door in the east wall,[29] behind the reredos, suggestive of the use of this part as a feretory or relic-chamber, and this recalls almost exactly the plan of the church (collegiate) of Westbury-on-Trym, which is also furnished with a semi-hexagonal apse.

Calculating that the inner faces of the three walls of this annexe would have been designed to be more or less equal in breadth, for sake of symmetry, a line was struck across the apse at the required point, a stake put in, and a very careful chain-measure made from end to end of the whole range of Abbey buildings—i.e., from the internal face of the Lady Chapel or Church of St. Mary at the west, to this point, and the measure was then found to be precisely 580 feet, as given by Hearne and Hollar. The true plan of the chapel was published in the 1909 volume of Proceedings, and makes an interesting comparison with the conjectural plan (see Fig. [7], p. 64).

Two years later, in the collection of Colonel Wm. Long, J.P., of Clevedon, an eighteenth-century manuscript plan of the ruins, hitherto quite unknown, came to light, and was found to show the two inclined wall-sections of the apse of the Edgar Chapel. A note attached to this plan gives the extreme dimensions of the chapel as 87 feet by 49 feet. The latter would only be correct if it included the little chantry projecting on the south side. It would not represent the true outside measure of the chapel proper, which is elsewhere stated as 34 feet, and must have approximated to that width.

Eighty-seven feet is of course fairly correct as an internal measure of length, and thus substantiates the record.

SITTING XXXIX.—Continued.

"AWFWOLD ye Saxon hath tried, but hee knows not ye tongue. He hath somewhat of olden tyme that ye have found in ye este. He sayth hee hadde a house or housen in wattlework and a churche within the forte, ye which wee did enter when wee made Edgar hys newe chappell. Soe he sayth. And that wych is beyond the chappell, is not there a chambre, the wyche ye shall see when ye have digged full deepe. And from hym did go a passage way to the Lodge over the gate that leadeth to Chalice. Hyt is gonne full syne, wee wot. Wyth hym—the chambre—ye church was six hundred and twenty-eight feete in length inside and sixteene more outside walls, soe wee remember."

Fig. 7. Plan of Apsidal Chapel after Excavation was completed

The blackened wattlework was found at a great depth in the clay near the south-east corner of the Edgar Chapel. It was examined together with other remains, and reported on by Mr. St. George Gray in the Proceedings of the Somerset Archæological Society for 1909. No attempt has been made to explore the site beyond the eastward limit of the Chapel. The ground is very deep, and there are other difficulties. As the proved internal length of the Abbey with the Chapel is 580 feet, this measure of 628 feet would imply another large addition, and in the absence of any sort of evidence of its probability, it is impossible to attach the least weight to it.

"The tombe of Arthur in shining blacke stone was in front of ye altare. Ye can see hys size even now, an ye wis, in ye claye, and certain fragmentes that yet are for hym to seeke. Blacke and scarlet and golde was ye choire, save where they didde paint ye leaves in greene, and somme tyme browne where ye clausteres were. Ye windowe was much clere glasse wyth colours in ye midst under golden canopyes in ye heades of the pannels. There was under ye alare (sic) a chambre ye wyche ye did enter from the rear, but hee was low and smalle, and there were many buried in hym. The pathe for processions wasne needed, and soe they went not behind ye altare where ye chappells were nor behind ye greate screene under ye este windowe. The churche he was soe grete there was room enow in ye aisles and soe across ye altare in front of hym by Arthur's tombe."

Q. "As to traces of an interment behind the reredos wall. Can you tell us anything of this?"

A. "Yee martyr was hee. They made a martyr's grave. He was not coffined, for they were but bones got by ye faithful from Bathe and Tauntone, and brought in secret. He was yplaced under ye altare, and they who pulled yt downe when Elizabeth was Queene drew hym out. They knew not who hee was, our Abbot. Ye knowe.... Hee who swam in ayre when hee wold not. Whytynge. They knew not. Wee deemed the altare wold stande for alle tyme."

Q. "Who desecrated the Abbey?"

A. "My Lord Somersete. Hee cared but for golde—ne faith, ne good—Hee a Protestant, a traitor hee. A heretic was hee."

Q. "Is there any foundation for the legends of secret passages in and about the Abbey?"

A. "Covered ways to the corner of the cloyster by ye Prior's House. Hee is fallen in, we wot, and likewise hym that goeth to King's Gate, but somme is left. Some of ye passage at the east end ye shall finde. (Here follows a plan.) The Kingswaye seeke ye neare ye Gatehouse—ye cellars that wee used. Ye shall find ye passage. Ye shold seek the grete draine. Many things are therein. Ye should seeke for it.

"JOHANNES et alii.
"Permultae memoriae."