"Ye must see owre old manor of Sharpham. There is somewhat for you there. Search it diligently, and the walls around. "Ye church ye have found is ye one which Ina builded and it was yjoined to the olde churche by a timber passage-way and many steppys. Yt had no towre, but as it were the short arms of a crosse and ye pillars were greate and rounde as ye see. (_This alludes to an excavation in the nave._) "Ye roofe was woode and it was rough and rude, ne like unto our church of St. Mary. "Would ye could digge around ye altare,[24] for there ye will find much black marble of the style ye call 'decorated.' [24] _I.e._, the high altar of the later church. "We wold make ye see it--square, and as it were square buttresses with canopies and imagery, full forty feet in height, somewhat level in ye toppe, like a screene, and in ye midst a faire canopy of gilded stone in width four feet and full of fifteen feet in height; and in front an image of Our Lady in gold and scarlet robes holding in her hands the Christ and a sceptre of power. On either side two doors with steppys leading down to the path for processions behind ye altare. Can ye not see it? Black stone and images, and guilding in the hollow places under the ornaments. On ye south side, as we deem it, ye will find most of ye pieces and even ye tombes of Arthur and of ye two saints Edgar[25] (_sic_) all black stone with much guilding and ye effigies of ye Kinge and ye Queene with ye Lyons in blacke stone--nay, rather, ye Lyons were in light stone like ye bases of ye tombes. [25] Should be "Edmund." [Illustration: PLATE II. THE EDGAR CHAPEL. View of the completed excavations, showing Bere's rectangular chapel of four bays, and the eastern annexe with the "walls at an angle." _To face page 56._] "And ye grete east window in pannels like unto ye sides of ye choir, and very faire, with a balcony. Ye balcony was underneath ye window and from yt did lead the way to ye altare back where was an ymage of Saint Mary, of great value and very olde, which was saved from the fire long synce. "Ego sum JOHANNES qui ex memoria rei dico--meminisco--dixi annorum 1492." (I am Johannes, who speak from memory of the matter. The time of which I spoke would be 1492, as I remember.) SITTING XXXVII. 30th November, 1908. "The ending of the chappel was at an angle, the sides makyng as it were a baye in the east wall there. The last bay to the east hayde an arche like unto a chancel arche and with a feather ornament, as hadde all the other arches; and the space beyond into the baye was as it were three fannes with thin pillars running up the angles and spreading toward the arche. In the three faces of the east wall were three windowes, and all this was faire made by Abbot Whitting, who lengthened Edgar's Chappel somewhat, to the extent of half a bay.... The fannes are flat which Whitting builded, and ye will see them how they fitted together.