y see a lectern of Norman date, carved out of a
block of alabaster with curious forms of beasts and foliage; and in
the centre, rudely cut is the figure of a bishop, holding in his left
hand a crozier, his right in the act of benediction. This lectern once
graced a chapel in the great church of Evesham; and the figure
pourtrayed is Bishop Egwin, the first Abbot, to whom we owe the
beginnings of the great and powerful Abbey.

The north chapel, with its monuments of a fashion long passed away,
and its heraldic adornments, suggestive of the age of chivalry, forms
a picture at once imposing and pathetic. The monuments are of
considerable interest, and are good examples of Renaissance ornament
and sculpture of three successive periods. The Bigge family, to the
memory of whom they were erected, inherited through Sir Philip Hoby
much of the Abbey land in this district. Early in the seventeenth
century their mansion and estates were purchased by Lord Craven, and
it is to the family of this nobleman that the funereal flags, tabards,
and arms suspended above the monuments, belong.

From Norton church we may return by a field path which leads into and
crosses a lane known as King's Lane, and possibly connected with some
cavalier episode. The hamlet which we see before us is Lenchwick, and
if we take the village street, after passing the lane to Chadbury we
presently come to a steep but short descent with a group of old barns
on our left. Near this spot stood, until about a hundred years ago, a
stately mansion built by Sir Thomas Bigge, whose tomb we have but now
visited.

A letter is still extant from Sir Philip Hoby requesting permission
from the King's agent to purchase stone from the Abbey ruins for
building, and there can be little doubt that this house was
constructed of the same material. By the "irony of fate" this mansion,
born of the spoliation of that institution, in its turn fell a prey to
the destroyer, and fragments of carved stones telling of Elizabethan
days may be found in these and other farm buildings within the area of
the parish.

THE END

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Evesham, by Edmund H. New

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