Pennant, who went to "Whichenoure House" in 1780, says the local Flitch had "remained untouched from the first century of its institution to the present." He also avers that "the late and present worthy owners of the Manor were deterred from entering into the holy state from the dread of not obtaining their own Bacon!" The present owner of Wichnor, or Wychnor Park, is Mr. T. B. Levett. The Lord of the Manor is Lord Lichfield. In the Lichfield Road there is a "Flitch of Bacon" inn as there is in Little Dunmow. --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: "FAIR MATILDA", TOMB OF THE LADY JUGA] "FAIR MATILDA."--This is a photograph show in greater detail the pathetic face of the effigy traditionally supposed to be that of Fitzwalter's daughter. TOMB OF THE LADY JUGA, who founded the Priory in 1104. --------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------------------------------------------------------------- [Illustration: FISH-POND OF THE MONKS, DETAIL OF CARVING] FISH-POND OF THE MONKS.--Site of one of a remarkable series of fish ponds--it may also be mill-ponds--which extend from near Priory Place. DETAIL OF CARVING.--From the choir stalls of the church. Note the flying pig, conceivably an allusion by some waggish monk to the Flitch ceremony! --------------------------------------------------------------------- CHAPTER XIII The Bacon Over Sea A few years ago Mr. Hastings Worrin, J.P., a churchwarden of the Priory Church of Little Dunmow, and a well-known collector of memorials of the Bacon ceremonies and of the old Priory, to whom the writer of this record is greatly indebted, received a letter addressed to "The Prior of Dunmow." It was from a New York lawyer and his wife, also a member of the legal profession, who had had a little Flitch celebration on their own account, and seemed to think (as the _Times_ of August 21, 1803, actually did) that the old Priory still existed-- Whereas, (runs a little fly sheet which they issued to their friends) Girdwood Mulliner and Gabrielle his wife, in reverence for the old tradition, its quaint basic thought so sweetly resting in the sanctity of the marriage relation, knowing in their hearts that they have earned the Flitch of Bacon by the sure right of their living, although far from the Priory and the pointed stones, do here and now kneel and lay claim to it-- I, Leslie Allen Wright, the chief attendant to the Bridegroom upon his day of wedding, praying a grace of pardon for usurping the Prior's rightful duty, yet feeling the fine prompting spirit of the ancient custom, do now bestow upon these two worthy persons, Walter Girdwood Mulliner and Gabrielle his wife, a Flitch of Bacon. May they in all the added years of their life grow in Ripeness and in Spirit. Amen.