[3] _Cf._ Leland's _Itinerary_. "Abbate Beere buildid Edgares Chapel at the Est End of the Chirch, but Abbate Whiting performed sum part of it." [Illustration: FIG. 2.--PROFESSOR WILLIS'S PLAN.] Professor Willis's conjecture represents the largest or most liberal interpretation yet placed by any antiquary upon the passage from Leland--which, it may be said, is the only known contemporary evidence of this work of the last two Abbots. Parker,[4] who reviewed the whole subject of the plan in his work for the Somerset Archæological Society (see his article in their _Proceedings_ for 1880), does not support Willis's conclusions, inclining rather to the view that the Edgar Chapel was in the south transept, to the east of the _nave_, but it is within the writer's knowledge that Professor Freeman believed that the original quire, which, before Monington's addition of a fifth and sixth bay, must have been shorter by some 39 feet, was furnished with a large eastern chapel, probably a Lady-chapel, and that this may have been of quite considerable dimensions and even co-extensive in total length with the plan as given by Willis. But this view does not appear to have gone farther than a mere expression of opinion verbally given at a meeting in the Abbey, and the writer only heard it quoted as a reminiscence some time after the discovery of the Edgar Chapel. [4] See paper by James Parker, M.A., in 1880 volume of _Som. Arch. Proc._, p. 101, where he says, speaking of the Edgar Chapel: "The question is, What did Leland mean by the 'est end of the chirch'? Does he mean the choir? Of course, I cannot say that he does not. But there are two considerations. The first is the view preserved by Stukely, taken by his friend Mr. Strachey before the Abbot's House was pulled down, and, as I understand it, some few years before 1723. In this a larger portion of the second chapel in the south transept remains than now, and it is lettered 'Edgar Chapel.' He seems to have obtained his name from hearsay, and possibly no importance ought to be attached to the tradition by itself. The other consideration seems to me more worthy of attention, and may perhaps support the tradition, where it is said in the next paragraph which Leland gives in reference to Abbot Bere, that he 'arched' on both sides, the east part of the church." Parker proceeds to argue that this arching probably refers to the east end _of the nave_, not of the choir, and that if so, then Edgar's Chapel belongs to the same work, and would thus be connected with the transept also. "And there," says Parker, "it is placed in the only engraving which gives the name." "On the whole," he concludes, "I think it must be left an open question as to what Abbot Bere built; at least, that the evidence is not sufficient to justify putting Edgar's Chapel _at the east end of the choir_."