N.B.-Part XII. will contain Title Page, Contents with Full Index,

thus completing Volume V.

To Subscribers.

SUBSCRIPTIONS for 1893 are NOW DUE, and the amount, 5s. 6d. if not already paid, should be at once remitted to the Editor, 124, Chancery Lane, London, by means of a Postal Order payable at Chancery Lane. Stamps should not be

sent.

Subscribers are requested to enclose their names and addresses when forwarding their subscriptions. This very necessary precaution has been omitted in more than one instance.

Notices to Correspondents and Subscribers.

CONTRIBUTIONS relating to the district, whether literary or artistic, are invited from all who are interested in Gloucestershire. The Editor will welcome any notes, queries, or replies, and any photographs and sketches relating to the district.

Contributions should, as far as possible, consist of original matter only.

All communications should be accompanied by the name and address of the writer. The signatures of contributors are appended, unless a wish to the contrary may have been expressed.

Correspondents are requested not to make use of any contractions in their transcripts except when such occur in the originals, and to write only on one side of the paper. Names of persons and places should be very distinctly written.

REVIEWS.-Books, pamphlets, etc., bearing on the district, or subjects connected therewith, sent for review, will receive due attention.

BINDING. The binder is requested, in arranging the illustrations of Vol. I., to attend to the directions given for his guidance, p. xvi. Bishop John Talbot's Monument" will be found in Part VI., and the Map of the County of Gloucester" and 'Over Bridge" in Part XI.

66

Special covers for the volumes have not been provided, the matter of binding being left to the taste of each subscriber.

BACK PARTS.-Vol. I. being out of print, copies can be supplied only as they may turn up for sale from time to time, and then only to purchasers of sets. A liberal price will be paid for copies of Vol. I. Vol II., comprising Parts XIII-XXIV., can be procured from the Editor until further notice, price 185, or by post, 18s. 6d. Vol. III., comprising Parts XXV-XXXVI., price 15s., or by post, 15s. 6d. Vol. IV., comprising Parts XXXVII-XLVIII., price 15s., or by post, 15s. 6d. If taken together, a set of all the volumes in print will be supplied, carriage paid, for Two Guineas.

INDEX TO VOLUME IV.—In reply to enquiries, the Editor begs to say that the index to Vol. IV. was prepared and printed under the directions of Mr. Blacker's representatives. Copies were sent to all known subscribers, but those who may not have received the index should address-G. A. W. Blacker, Esq., 21, King Square, Bristol.

WN 30 1894

LIBRARY.

Gloucestershire

Notes and Queries.

F

Hawkesbury Church.

EW village churches can shew a greater antiquity than that

of Hawkesbury, for it is certain that one existed here long before the close of the seventh century. Of that early building nothing now remains, unless, indeed, the foundations of a wall discovered in the late restoration in the west part of the nave may have formed part of it. Dedicated to the blessed Virgin, it was the mother church of a large parish, which included the four chapelries of Hilsley, Tresham, Waste, and Little Badminton, beside the hamlets of Upton, Kilcot, and Seddlewood, as well as Ingleston and Chalkeley. The church lies in the valley near Ingleston common. within the tithing of Stoke, or Stoke Hawkesbury, a name which has long dropped out of use and at the foot of the hill on which lies Hawkesbury Upton, now the most populous part of the parish, though we shall probably be right if we infer that Stoke Hawkesbury in early days was the larger of the two. Indeed, the whole parish must once have been a far more important place than it now is. A fair and market was established at this place by charter in 1253, though it has long since been forgotten.

The dimensions of the church from east to west are nearly one hundred and thirty feet, with a width of nearly seventy feet, inclusive of the two porches. Almost every style of building is exhibited in it. There are some fragments of pre-Norman work in the

north porch, surmounted by a Norman doorway. The greater part of the chancel, the south aisle, and some portions of the tower and north porch, are of Early English date. The arcade in the nave, and part of the tower, are of the Decorated Style; whilst the clerestory, the south porch, and most of the north porch, as well as the upper part of the tower, the pulpit and some minor work, belong to the Perpendicular period. Of the work of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries there still remain traces, and the date 1736 in the church marks repairs then undertaken. The pews are of Jacobean character. In plan, the church consists of a chancel, the nave, with a smaller aisle, at the end of which is the Stinchcombe chantry, two large porches, and a tower. A plan to scale appeared in the thirteenth volume of the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society, which also contains some interesting details of the church, and of the various discoveries made during the restoration, which took place in 1882. A view of the church from the north was given in Bigland's Gloucestershire, and its general appearance at the present time, both inside and out, is shewn by the accompanying engravings. The restoration of this ancient building was undertaken in 1882, when many necessary repairs were executed, though unfortunately the architect illadvisedly removed the whole of the plaster from the walls when re-pointed, thereby giving to the interior a very bare and crude appearance. For this he gives some reasons in his account of the restoration. One of them, that it "enables archæologists to study the history of the church," sounds very strange. The supposed needs of antiquaries is hardly a sufficient reason for denuding rough rubble walls of plaster, and it is hard to find in mere unsightliness the "dignity" which the architect claims for this method of treatment.

The seventeenth century pews were retained, but were altered and re-arranged, though this in a village church could hardly have been requisite, however needful such a change may be in a populous town parish, and we may be permitted to regret that so good an instance of pew work of that date was not allowed to remain untouched.

In the chancel are the banners and monuments of the Earls of Liverpool, which have been fully described in Gloucestershire Notes and Queries, V., pp. 177, 252.

At the east end of the aisle was the chantry, founded about the