Adjoining to WINCHESTER HOUSE, towards the south, stood ROCHESTER HOUSE, formerly the residence of the bishops of that see. Stow did not remember to have read concerning the date of its erection; but observes, that it had not been inhabited by any bishop for a considerable time, and was much out of repair. It had belonged to the priory of St. Swithen, Winchester; but afterwards was divided into small and mean dwellings.

The abbots of Waverley, in Surrey, had also their inn here.

We now arrive in an eastward direction to the parish church of

ST. MARY OVERY, OR ST. SAVIOUR.

THIS church was founded long before William the Conqueror, by a maiden named Mary; being a house of sisters, to whom she gave the profits of the ferry cross the river Thames to and from London (there then being no bridge.) This house was afterward converted into a college of priests, by a pious lady named Swithen; and in the year 1106, was converted to be a priory for canons regular, by William Pont de le Arch, and William Dauncy, knights and Normans; when William Giffard, bishop of Winchester, built

the

the body of the church, and king Henry I. by charter, gave them the church of St. Margaret on the Hill; the gift was confirmed by king Stephen. Peter de la Roch founded a large chapel dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, in the church of St. Mary; and this chapel was afterwards used as the parish church for the neighbouring inhabitants. St. Mary Overy's church was newly erected about the year 1400, to which John Gower, Esq. poet, was a great benefactor. In the year 1469, the roof of the middle aisle fell down; and in 1539, the priory was surrendered to Henry VIII valued at 6241. 6s. 8d. per annum. About the ensuing Christmas the inhabitants of the Borough of Southwark purchased the priory church, which was by charter made for the joint use, both of the parishioners of St. Mary Magdalen and St. Margarets, and called by the name of St. Saviour's, Southwark ; the chapel of St. Mary Magdalene, on the south side, being added to the mother church, to enlarge it for the accommodation of a numerous parish. To this purchase bishop Gardiner was a great contributor. In the thirty-second of Henry VIII. the charter was confirmed by act of parliament, constituting the churchwardens a corporation.

We cannot repress our indignation when we relate the indignities which this sacred fabric suffered in the seventeenth century. We relate the circumstances in the words of Strype, in his edition of Stow:

"Upon this spacious and specious church, for well it deserves those epithets, we look backwards twenty years, or thereabouts: at which time it was in many parts of it repaired, and within throughout, richly and very worthily beautified.

"About two or three years after that gallery that is over that part of the church which is called St. Peter's Chapel, and that which is over agains it; as also that gallery that crosses the middle isle over the entrance into the chancel, much gracing the church, and supplying a great necessity, were worthily contrived and erected.

"In the years of our Lord God 1621 and 1622, it was again in many parts of it repaired; all the north side of it

at

at once strengthened and beautified with a substantial and very artificial rough cast: the other side plastered and whited.

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"Among many rich and beautiful things that have been added to this church at divers times, and to several parts and places, some of a general cost, and some of particular bounties, for some reserved causes omitted, we here only remember that extraordinary fair and curious table of the Commandments, and the screen at the west door, set up in the year of our Lord God 1618.

"But passing all these, somewhat now of that part of this church above the chancel, that in former times was called OUR LADY'S CHAPEL.

"It is now called the NEW CHAPEL, and indeed, though very old, it now may be called a new one, because newly redeemed from such use and employment, as in respect of, that it was built to Divine and religious duties, may very well be branded with the stile of wretched, base, and unworthy. For that which, before this abuse, was and is now a fair and beautiful chapel, by those that were then the corporation, (which is a body consisting of thirty vestrymen, six of those thirty churchwardens) was leased and let out; and this house of God made a Bake-house.

"Two very fair doors that from the two side isles of the chancel of this church; and two, that through the head of the chancel, as at this day they do again, went into it, were lathed, daubed, and dammed up; the fair pillars were ordinary posts, against which they piled billets and bairns. In this place they had their ovens, in that a bolting place, in that their kneading trough; in another, I have heard, a bog's trough: for the words that were given me were,

This place have I known a hogsty; in another a store house, to store up their hoarded meal; and in all of it something of this sordid kind and condition.'

"It was first let by the corporation aforenamed to one Wyat; after him to one Pecock; after him to one Oleybrooke; and, last, to one Wilson, all bakers. And this

chapel,

chapel, still employed in the way of their trade, a bakehouse, though some part of this bakehouse was some time turned into a starch house..

"The time of the continuance of it in this kind, from the first letting of it to Wyat, to the restoring of it again to the Church, was threescore and some odd years, in the year of our Lord God 1624: for in this year, the ruins and blasted estate that the old corporation sold it to, were, by the corporation of this time, repaired, removed, well and very worthily beautified: the charge of it for that year, with any things done to it since, arising to two hundred pounds. This, as the former repairs, being at the sole costs. and charges of the parishioners. One aisle in this chapel was paved at the only cost of one Mr. John Hayman, taylor and Merchant Taylor, in the year 1625."

It is noble and spacious, built with three aisles, running from east to west, and a cross aisle, after the manner of a cathedral. It is built of the antient Gothic order; the roof of the body of the church and chancel, is supported by twenty-six pillars, thirteen in a range; that of Our Lady, or New Chapel (now used for the bishop's court) with six smaller pillars; and that of the former church of St. Mary Magdalene (on the south side) by six pillars, like the last. There are galleries in the walls of the choir, adorned with pillars and arches, similar to Westminster Abbey. The tower is erected on four very strong pillars, over the meeting of the middle aisle with the cross aisle; at the four angles of the tower are pinnacles of stone, with crockets, and the walls of the church of brick and boulder.

The substantial reparation of 1703, will more plainly appear, by describing the ornaments of this church; for it is wainscoted nine and a half feet high; it is well pewed, and has galleries on the west, north, and south sides, all of wainscot; the pulpit and communion table are of the same species of timber, and finely veneered; the latter having enrichments of a glory, cherubims, doves, &c. placed on a fine black and white marble foot-pace, inclosed with rail and banister, and with a wainscot fence. The altar-piece VOL. IV. No. 97.

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is

is very stately and beautiful, in altitude about thirty-five feet, of wainscot; it consists of an upper and lower part; the latter is adorned with four fluted columns, and their entablature of the Corinthian order; the intercolumns are the Commandments done in black letters, on large slabs of white and veined marble, under a glory (exhibiting the name Jehovah, in Hebrew characters) and triangular pediments, between four Attic pilasters, with an acroteria of the figures of seven golden candlesticks replenished with tapers; the whole is under a spacious circular pediment belonging to the Corinthian columns, which are placed between the Paternoster and Creed; each under a pediment, between small pilasters. The upper part is adorned with four pedestals, and between them two attic pilasters, with a small compass pediment; on these six, and one on the middle of the pediment, are placed seven lamps, and in the centre of this upper part, is a glory in the shape of a dove descending within a circular groupe of cherubims, all very spacious and finely painted, and presented to the view, as it were, by the withdrawing of a rich curtain painted in festoons; behind all which is a five light window, the arch whereof is enriched with the figures of six swans, and an angel. The organ case is of oak, very lofty, elevated on ten square pillars, the upper part whereof is adorned with three fames carved, standing in full proportion, about fortytwo feet from the area of the aisle.

There are two handsome inner door cases opening into the choir northward and southward, and one of iron at the west end of the church, under the organ; also an outer doorcase on the south side, set up in 1676. Over the aperture of the west door, are the words of Genesis 28. 17. Psal. 39. 5. Jerem. 7, 2, 3.

The dimensions of the church are as follows: length from the altar to the iron gate one hundred and twenty-six feet; from that gate to the west end of the church seventy-one feet; from the altar to the east end of the new chapel seventy-two feet: so the whole length is two hundred and sixty-nine feet; of the cross aisle one hundred and nine feet; breadth of the middle aisle thirty feet; of