6, 7, 9, 10, 11 FRAGMENTS OF SEPULCHRAL CROSSES AND GRAVE SLABS 8 EAST WINDOW, RESTORED FROM FRAGMENTS 12 BELL, FROM UPTON OVERCHURCH CHURCH. ? 10 49 feet, and a total length of 84 feet (12 times 7) ; nave, 7 times 7; chancel, 3 times 7; tower, twice 7; probable breadth of nave, 21 feet, 3 times 7. This, of course, assumes 7 to be the dominant number. Let us see how this fits the tradition that it held 150 people. With a 3 feet central aisle, we have two ranges of seats 9 feet long, each holding six people; and if they are 3 feet apart, we have fourteen on the north side. On the south we must allow three benches for the entrance and space for the font, leaving eleven, or twenty-five in all, each holding six people, or 150 altogether. Thus, a church proportioned on this basis of seven, gives us the exact accommodation that tradition says it afforded. A few pieces of plain oak paneling have been used in the church of 1813, which appear to belong to the seventeenth century. The very small amount of material evidence that is left to us made much of this plan conjectural at the time it was taken, but I think it cannot be very wide of the truth. Perhaps some old View of this church may ultimately be found, on which more certain data can be founded. All that we can do now is to rescue what we have from oblivion.2 About a year after these conjectures as to the plan of the church were made from the fragments, it became possible, while the grass was ungrown, to find traces of the ancient foundations, and to measure them. The result showed that the deviations from the plan originally made, in the actual measurements were small; and the character of the building and its features, as described by Prince, were entirely established. The Plan given has been corrected to the actual measurements, and 2 A smail View of the church on a map dated 1665 has since been found by Mr. Fergusson Irvine, entirely confirming these particulars. It is copied on the plate opposite page 306 of this vol. shows a west tower of 15 feet square, exterior measurement; a nave of 50 feet by 25 feet, exterior measure; a chancel 21 feet by 14 feet to the centre of the walls; a porch 15 feet by 10 feet; and a chamber, or vestry, on the north of the chancel. There seems to have been a door on the north side of the tower, and a priest's door on the north side of the chancel, leading by a passage both into the Chancel, and to the "chamber"; also a chancel arch, as there were indications, both of its piers, and of the large north buttresses that acted as its counterforts. Much of the pavement remains beneath the sod, partly consisting of grave slabs. The foundations are so much ruined and overgrown, that some little variation must be still possible in these measures. These Measurements not only confirm the conclusions derived from the proportions of the stones, that the numbers dominating the construction of this church were five and seven; but also, by carefully examining the plan, it has been possible to discover the geometrical basis from which they were evolved. This proves to be, as in the case of Liverpool Castle, a Pentacle, or five-pointed star. Two of these figures are contained in the Chancel. They are based on its diagonal lines crossing at the centre, which give angles of 77 degrees; one of these gives the measures and proportion of the Sacrarium, the other that of the Presbytery. Two pentacles similarly constructed, with angles of 55 degrees, mark out the Nave; a fifth, with angle of 55 degrees, marks the measures and detail and position of the Tower; two larger pentacles, embracing the two in the chancel and nave respectively, and based upon their lines, determine both the site and size of the chamber or sacristy, and of the porch. It will be seen from the Plan, on which these |