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There are other large marble grave-slabs, without inscriptions, in the church, which are supposed to cover abbots, monks, and benefactors. On some there are the matrices of missing brasses. One, in front of the altar steps, shows the outline of a civilian in a plain gown, and his wife wearing a “butterfly” head-dress, with their five sons and four daughters, circa 1490. In St. John the Baptist’s Chapel, at the east end of the north aisle of the church, there is a small fifteenth century brass to John Artur, one of the monks of the Abbey, with a Latin inscription, which bids God have mercy on his soul. In the same chapel, a very fine coloured armorial brass over Sir John Tregonwell’s altar-tomb contains the latest tabard example on a brass in England (1565).[28]
But to mention all the ancient or modern memorials (some of wondrous beauty, such as those of Lord and Lady Milton, and Baron Hambro) would take far too much space. A marble tablet in the vestry informs the reader that John Tregonwell, Esquire, who died in the year 1680, “by his last will and testament gave all the bookes within this vestry to the use of this Abby Church for ever, as a thankfuld acknowledgement of God’s wonderfull mercy in his preservation when he fell from the top of this Church.” This incident happened when he was a child; he was absolutely uninjured, his stiff skirts having acted as a parachute.[29] The chained library of sixty-six leather-bound volumes comprises the works of the Latin and Greek Fathers and other early Christian writers, and some standard theological works of the seventeenth century. The books have been kept at the vicarage for many years.
Abbot Middleton’s Rebus.
The abbey now contains very little painted glass.[30] There is a large “Jesse window” by the elder Pugin in the south transept, and some coloured coats of arms and devices of kings, nobles, and abbots in some of the other windows. The dwarfed east window contains the only pre-Reformation glass in the church.[31] The Abbatial Arms are emblazoned in several parts of the building. They consist of three baskets of bread, each containing three loaves. On one of the walls in the south aisle, near the vestry, there is the carved coloured rebus of Abbot William de Middleton, with the date 1514 in Arabic numerals—the 4 being represented by half an eight. It comprises the letter W with a pastoral staff, and a windmill on a large cask—in other words, a mill and a tun (Mil-ton). The old miserere seats still remain in the choir, but the carving thereon is not very elaborate, and many of them have been renewed. The inscriptions on the Communion plate (which consists of two large silver barrel-shaped flagons, a bell-shaped chalice, and a large and a small paten) tell us that “John Chappell, Sitteson and Stationer of London, 1637,” and “Mary Savage, 1658,” and “Maddam Jane Tregonwell, widdow, 1675,” gave these to “Milton Abby.”
There are several other interesting things in the church, albeit not ancient—e.g., the rood-loft, the font, and the pulpit.
The rood-loft, although not entirely ancient, is composed of ancient materials. When the party-walls of St. John the Baptist’s Chapel, the chantry of Abbot William de Middleton, and other side-chapels, were destroyed or mutilated at the “restoration” in 1789, some of the materials were used to reconstruct the rood-loft. The eastern cornice, for instance, is probably a portion of Abbot Middleton’s chantry, and bears thirteen coats of arms, including those of the Abbeys of Milton, Sherborne, and Abbotsbury, and the families of Chidiock, Latimer, Lucy, Stafford of Hooke, Thomas of Woodstock, and others.
The font of the Abbey, in the south transept, is modern, but of unusual design. It is composed of two beautiful life-sized white marble female figures, representing Faith and Victory, with a baptismal shell at their feet.