families, the successive owners of Haddon hall, will bear comparison with any structure of its kind in England; and it has been rebuilt in a manner which reflects great credit upon the architect. The most remarkable among these monuments is a well-executed effigy in alabaster of a knight in plate armour, said to represent Sir Thomas Wendesley, knight, who died in 1403. Upon his helmet is inscribed IHC NAZAREN. Lastly, an octagonal tower and spire were added to the Early English base, about the end of the fourteenth or the beginning of the fifteenth century, for the details retained much of the Decorated character; and about the same time the clerestory seems to have been added to the nave, and the flat roofs and battlements substituted for the high-pitched roofs of the transepts and chancel.
Some years ago the Norman tower-piers, which it was afterwards discovered were a mere mass of rubble in the interior without sufficient bond-stones, began to give way under the weight of these successive additions. The side walls could not sustain the pressure thus brought upon them, and after every expedient to stay the ruin had been tried in vain, by first taking off the spire in 1825, then the octagon tower in 1830, and by cramping together the walls, it was found necessary in 1841 to take down the whole of the remainder of the tower, and both the transepts with the Vernon chapel[1].
It was in the course of this work that the remains were discovered, of which we may now proceed to give some account. They consist, in part, of several fragments of stone carved with interlacing bands, and other devices, so closely resembling those on the cross in the church-yard, before mentioned, and more especially those on the cross at Eyam, a few miles distant, that there can be no doubt they may all be referred to the same period, whatever that may be determined to be. A more detailed description of these will be given hereafter.
- ↑ The new work is in most respects a faithful copy of the building taken down, with a few judicious alterations. It has not been attempted to restore the transepts to what might he conjectured to have been their original design, for such a restoration to have been made complete would no doubt have been attended with many difficulties. The tower pillars have been strengthened, and made to correspond in design with the south transept, and the work appears to have been executed in a very substantial manner. It should be observed that the triangular lights which are inserted over the side windows of the south transept did not exist in the former building.
