GATEWAY OF ST. MARY’S PRIORY, SOUTHWARK
Londina Illustrata, vol. i.
It was, therefore, immediately after this restoration that the remains of Bishop Andrewes were deposited in the Little Chapel. May there not have been some thought of preventing further desecration by the monument of this learned Divine?
The Chapel was taken down in 1830. The monument of the Bishop took up nearly the whole of the east end; a marble canopy originally stood over it, but this was broken in 1676 when the roof of the Chapel fell in; there was no altar and there were no services held in the Chapel; there was one other monument of a citizen named Hayman, buried here in the same year as the Bishop. Another monument, erected in 1807, was that of Abraham Newland, chief cashier of the Bank of England. Two stone coffins were preserved in this Chapel; and here were stone steps leading down into the vaults; the Chapel is said to have been quite plain, “with a groined roof, strong ribs, and a stone seat on both sides and at the east end.”
The removal of the Chapel formed part of the restoration work of 1830. At this time the church was in a most dangerous condition, the roof of the nave being so dilapidated that it was impossible to hold service there. Consequently the pews, organ, and monuments were removed to the chancel and transepts; the roof was taken down and the materials sold; and the walls and aisles were simply left exposed to the weather.
Wilkinson thus describes what followed:—
“The roof thus destroyed was a fine specimen of the architecture of the thirteenth century, and possessed the striking peculiarity of having the corbels, whence the ribs of the arches sprang, placed perpendicularly over the columns. Those columns had been already banded with iron, and the walls were green and dark with apparent decay, though it is said that some of the ancient timbers were still in a fine state of preservation; but in pursuance of the above order, the organ was removed to form a temporary termination to the choir, and the nave was uncovered and exposed; in which lamentable state it still continues, August 1834, not unlike the half-ruined edifice of the Cathedral of Llandaff.
