The Hopton Wood stone, or marble, as it is sometimes called, has a delicate gray vein, which is brought out by polish on the cornice and balustrade, as a relief to the unpolished surface elsewhere displayed. There is no inscription; but visitors are usually told about Mrs. Charlotte Hart, the apparently impecunious pew-opener at the church, who surprised her friends by dying worth close upon £3,000, and by leaving £600 to the restoration fund. A new pulpit happened to be wanted at the time, and the bequest was applied in its erection.
On the wall above is the Monument of Sir Robert Chamberlayne, an elegant piece of Jacobean work, deserving a closer examination than can be bestowed upon it without mounting the pulpit, and even there the inscription is scarcely legible. The sculpture, which is extremely well executed, represents Sir Robert kneeling in prayer within a circular pavilion, the curtains of which are held up by an angel on either side. The figure wears a partial suit of plate armour over the costume of the period, and the (bearded) face is turned obliquely towards the east yet away from the spectator, in the attitude of secret devotion. The tent is surmounted by a rich cornice, above which the monument terminates in an ornamental pediment displaying the crest of the deceased. The Latin inscription beneath relates his descent, through the holders of Sherburn Castle, Oxon, from the most ancient Tankerville family of Normandy; and adds that he was knighted by James I, and died between Tripoli and Cyprus, on a journey to the Holy Sepulchre, at the age of thirty-five, in the year 1615. The monument was erected by an unknown friend (amico amicus), who concludes with the pious ejaculation Coelo tegitur qui non habet urnam—Heaven covers him who has no sepulchre!
On the south wall, facing this monument, there is another of some interest and artistic merit. It is to the memory of Percival Smalpace and Agnes his wife, whose boldly sculptured heads are projecting from separate panels above the tablet containing the inscription. This is chiefly in Latin, and informs us that the deaths occurred respectively on 2nd February, 1568, and 3rd September, 1588, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and that Michael and Thomas erected the memorial jointly to the best of parents.
The moral of the English lines
| Behold yourselves by us; Such once were we as you: And you in time shall be Even dust as we are now. |
is enforced by a drawing, in outline, representing the nude figures of the departed lying side by side upon a couch in the sleep of death—no doubt intended as a memento mori of a less repulsive kind than the usual desiccated corpse. The monument has been invested with a coating of black, which at once conceals the whole of the marble (said to be brown), and shows up the inscription and the figures, both clearly incised and gilded.
The Ambulatory, which encompasses the choir, and is open to it on the inner side throughout its course, is an interesting part of the original fabric, and displays to full advantage the characteristic features of early Norman work—here made more conspicuous by the low pitch of the roof, which gives the columns and arches an appearance of even greater solidity than really belongs to them. The semicircular arches which support the roof spring from the capitals of the main arcade, and are merely wide bands of stone, without moulding or adornment of any kind. The intermediate spaces are equally plain, each compartment simply taking the quadripartite form (without vaulting-ribs) to accommodate it to the arcading on which it rests. The ceiling has been repaired with stone, and overlaid with plaster in the panels, but the design has been left undisturbed, as a specimen of early vaulting, rare enough to be worth preserving.[5]