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Wednesday, 02 March 2005 |
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The Building ...The left spandrel of the arch below is decorated with pomegranates; that on the right has roses. The conjunction of all those emblems commemorates the marriage of Arthur, prince of Wales (d. 1502), to Catharine of Aragon which took place by proxy at Tickenhill House near Bewdley (Worcs.) in 1499. She was daughter of Ferdinand V of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, joint rulers of Granada from 1492. A row of five quatrefoils of similar design was used above each of the north and south doorways of the porch of All Saints' church in Evesham. That over the north doorway has emblems commemorating the marriage of Arthur and Catharine, including the halved rose and pomegranate. Above the quatrefoils on that doorway, and a little to the right of them, is carved an anchor, emblem of St. Clement of Rome. He was the patron of Clement Wych alias Lichfield, abbot of Evesham 1513-38 and formerly prior: during his abbacy Lichfield built a chapel of St. Clement in St. Lawrence's church, Evesham, and his celebrated bell tower has an anchor carved over the gateway on its east side. The south chapel of All Saints' church has the monogram 'CLP' (thought to stand for Clemens Lichfield Prior) on a pendent boss inside. The chapel is all of one date and was therefore built by Clement Lichfield before 1514. The pierced and embattled parapet on its south side is of exactly the same pattern as that on the west side of the porch. The anchor of St. Clement, the emblems of Arthur and Catharine, and the parapet go to prove that, as has long been suspected, the porch of All Saints' church was built c. 1499-1502 by Prior Clement Lichfield. It follows that the 'almonry' chimney-piece of c. 1499-1502 is also Prior Lichfield's work and, since the chimney-piece does not appear to be a later insertion, so evidently was the whole of the original south wing. The internal dimensions of the lower room have been drastically altered by the removal of the original north, east, and south walls resulting in a gain of some 10 ft. (3 m.) toward the north and 4 ft. (1.2 m.) toward the east and a loss of some 4 ft. on the south. A large bay window in the south wall was removed between 1835 and 1884. The present timber-framed upper room replaced the original between the 16th and 18th centuries. Its chimney-piece is similar to that in the upper room of the north wing. Roughly contemporary with the 14th-century main hall was a kitchen some 40 ft. (12 m.) to the west. The massive chimney on its north wall survives and resembles the chimneys of the conventual kitchens (c. 1332) at Haughmond Abbey (Shrops.). |
