The Lady Chapel is divided from the Latin Chapel by four arches. Of these the first, being part of the original transept aisle, is very plain and massive, without mouldings and of one order; it springs from a square pier with shafts at the corners, and has an extremely broad soffit. It is almost beyond doubt part of Ethelred's church, and proves that the transept was finished early. The second arch is Early English, cut irregularly through the wall, which bears traces of a round arch above it. The first of the four arches which separate this chapel from the north choir aisle is similar to the one just described. The rest are very obtuse; for the two eastern bays of the Lady Chapel are two feet wider than the others, perhaps in order to increase the accommodation for worshippers at the shrine of St. Frideswide.
The "Watching Chamber."—Next in interest to the "shrine," and far more imposing in appearance, is the large tomb or watching chamber under the easternmost arch between the Lady Chapel and the Latin Chapel. Its real nature is still a matter of dispute: some maintaining it to have been used as a chantry chapel for the welfare of those who were buried below; others that it served as a "watching chamber" to protect the gold and jewels which hung about the shrine of St. Frideswide. But there is much likelihood that is was built for the new shrine of St. Frideswide, when the growing taste for elaboration in architecture tired of the comparative simplicity of the old one. If this be the case, the "watching chamber" would be in reality the third and last monument of St. Frideswide, the second being that already described, while of the first (that made for the Translation of 1180) no trace remains. The feretrum would have been removed from its position on the second monument, and placed within the little wooden chapel of the chamber.
Most elaborately carved and crocketed, the "watching chamber" is a beautiful example of full-blown Perpendicular workmanship; "most lovely English work, both of heart and hand," according to Mr. Ruskin. It consists of four stories, the two lower, in stone, forming an altar tomb and canopy, and the two upper in wood. A door from the Latin Chapel leads one up a small and well-worn stone staircase into the interior of the little upper chapel, which is now a rough wooden room. Its extreme roughness suggests that it was once panelled and otherwise adorned, while there are marks at its east end, which may be the site of an altar, or of the feretrum itself.
The "watching chamber" belongs to the turn of the fifteenth century, and may have been erected in 1500, under the patronage of Archbishop Morton, the inventor of "Morton's fork," who died in that year, having been Chancellor of the University, and a great benefactor of it. The stone altar-tomb is of rather earlier date than the wooden superstructure, and bears the matrices of two brasses, from which one can make out enough of the horned head-dress of the female figure to settle the costume as one that remained in fashion till about 1480.
In 1889 Mr. Park Harrison explored the interior of the tomb which forms the lower portion of the "watching chamber." Entrance was effected by the removal of two steps of the staircase which leads into the Latin Chapel, and the whole space beneath the stone slab was found to be packed with carved stones and rubble. The pretty battlemented coping, which is now happily placed on the sill behind the altar of the Latin Chapel, was thus found; and also a pillar piscina of Norman date, and a fine Early English piscina, with two trefoiled arches, divided by a slender shaft with foliated cap, and profusely enriched with the tooth ornament. This latter find can now be seen lying on the slab itself.
By an accident it was discovered that what seemed to be the floor of this tomb was really the ceiling of a vault beneath. The pavement was opened in the Latin Chapel just outside the tomb, and steps were found which led to the vault through a flat four-centred doorway. In the vault was a single oak coffin, widest at the head and tapering in a straight line to the foot, like the stone coffins of an earlier period. It was apparently of fifteenth century date, and contained a body closely swathed in cerecloth; but after the coffin was opened the dust within the cerecloth rapidly subsided. The body was pronounced by experts to be that of a woman about five feet six inches in height, and was probably that of the lady in the mitred head-dress whose brass can be traced on the altar-tomb.
Monuments in the Lady Chapel.—In the bay of the west of the "watching chamber" is the tomb of Elizabeth, Lady Montacute, who gave to the Priory the large field now known as the Christ Church Meadow, in order to maintain two priests for her chantry in the Lady Chapel. There seems to be no ground for the statement that she built the Latin Chapel; in her foundation-deed she expressly directs the masses and other offices to be said "within the chapel of the Blessed Mary," and, so far from her bequest proving sufficient to build a new chapel, it was soon found inadequate for the maintenance of the two chantry priests. Lady Montacute was the daughter of Sir Peter de Montfort, and was married first to William de Montacute, by whom she had four sons and six daughters, and afterwards to Thomas de Furnival. Her monument consists of a high tomb, the sides of which are divided into three panelled compartments. In these compartments are little statuettes of her children, and her own effigy rests on the top; at the head and foot of the tomb are quatrefoiled compartments containing sacred symbols and figures. It is very beautiful, and of great interest as showing many specimens of the costume of the period; but one can hardly imagine what its splendour must have been when the rich hues, with which it is painted in every part, were fresh. The colours mentioned in the following learned description by Mr M.H. Bloxham have long tended to monochrome, and the hand of the mutilator has been unusually painstaking and systematic.
"The head of the effigy reposes on a double cushion, and is supported on each side by a small figure of an angel in an alb; these albs are loose, and not girded round the waist. The heads of these figures are defaced, and they are otherwise much mutilated. She is represented with her neck bare, her hair disposed and confined on each side, the face within a jewelled caul of network; over the forehead is worn a veil, and over this is a rich cap or plaited head-dress with nébulé folds, with a tippet attached to it and falling down behind. Her body-dress consists of a robe or sleeveless gown, fastened in front downwards to below the waist by a row of ornamented buttons. The full skirts of the gown are tastefully disposed, but not so much so as we sometimes find on effigies of the fourteenth century. The gown is of a red colour, flowered with yellow and green, and at each side of the waist is an opening, within which is disclosed the inner vest, of which the close-fitting sleeves of the arms, extending to the wrists, form part; this is painted of a different colour and in a different pattern to the gown. This was probably the corset worn beneath the open super-tunic. The gown is flounced at the skirts by a broad white border, and round the side openings, and along the border of the top of the gown, is a rich border of leaves. The hands, which are bare, are joined on the breast in a devotional attitude. Over the gown or super-tunic is worn the mantle, fastened together in front of the breast by a large and rich lozenge-shaped morse, raised in high relief. The mantle, of a buff colour, is covered all over with rondeaux or roundels connected together by small bands, whilst in the intermediate spaces are fleur de lis: all these are of raised work, and deserve minute examination. They are apparently not executed by means of the chisel, but formed in some hard paste or composition [gesso] laid upon the sculptured stone and impressed with a stamp. The feet of the effigy appear from beneath the skirts of the gown in black shoes, and rest against a dog."