In the churchyard are some remains of the old stone cross.

At a period antecedent to the erection of any part of the now-existing church, the manor of Clevedon, or Clivedone, was granted to Mathew de Moretania, by William the Conqueror; but shortly afterwards we find its possessors, or occupants, bearing the name of De Clivedon. William de Clivedon held it in 1166, of William earl of Gloucester, and was succeeded by Mathew de Clievedon, who held it at the close of the twelfth century. In 1297 (25 Edward I.), John de Clivedon was summoned to perform feudal service, by attending the king, with horse and arms, into foreign parts. Mathew de Clivedon was in possession in 1360; Richard his son, in 1378; and Alexander de Clivedon in 1409. "These last," says Collinson, "seem to have been out of the regular line of descent; for it is expressly shewn, that Edmund de Clivedon was the last lord of Clevedon of that name, and that dying 50 Edward III., without issue, the estates which he possessed descended to Edmund, the son of Thomas Hogshaw, by Emmelina his wife, daughter and heir of the said Edmund de Clivedon. Which Edmund Hogshaw died seised of the manor of Clivedon, and divers other, late in the possession of the family of Clivedon, 14 Ric. II., leaving no issue; whereupon the said lands were divided between Sir Thomas Lovel, Knt., the husband of Joan, one of the sisters of the said Edmund Hogshaw, and John Bluet, the husband of Margery, his other sister." In this partition the manor of Clivedon was assigned to Bluet, who soon afterwards conveyed his right therein to Sir Thomas Lovel, Knt., son of the Sir Thomas Lovel before-mentioned. At his death the manor passed into possession of his son-in-law, Sir Thomas Wake, Knt., gentleman of the privychamber to king Edward IV. From him, his son, Sir Roger Wake, received it. This gentlemen, who was sheriff of Northamptonshire 2 Rich. III., having espoused the cause of that monarch at the battle of Bosworth-field, "was attainted in parliament, and his lands seized to the use of Henry VII., who, in the third year of his reign, granted one moiety of this manor of Clivedon to Sir Humphrey Stanley and Sir James Parker, Knights; and the other to John Crocker and John Dudley, Esqs.: to hold by the service of a red rose, payable yearly at the feast of the nativity of St. John the Baptist. But shortly after the said Roger Wake obtained a pardon, and the restitution of all, or the greater part of his lands, and settled this manor, with the capital mansion, on Richard his second son."

In this family the manor continued for nearly a century and a-half, and then passed, by marriage, to John Digby, earl of Bristol, of whose family it was purchased by Sir Abraham Elton, the first baronet of that name, whose descendant, Sir Charles Abraham Elton, is the present possessor.*

The church of Clevedon was appropriated to the abbey of St. Augustine, in Bristol; and in the former number of this Magazine, p. 33, we quoted an entry from the abbey accounts of monies paid for the carriage of grain from Clevedon and Tickenham to the granary of the abbey. The church is dedicated to St. Andrew. The living is vicarial, in the patronage of the Bishop of Bristol.

Collinson, 167-8.

WORLE CHURCH, SOMERSETSHIRE.

WORLE CHURCH, in the county of Somerset and diocese of Bath and Wells, about 18 miles south-west of Bristol, is picturesquely situated at the western extremity of the village of Worle, half-way up the side of the long insulated hill of the same name. It consists of a nave and

chancel, with a north aisle to the former, a tower with a low spire at the west end, and a south porch. With the exception of the inner door of the porch, and of the font, which are Norman, it is entirely of Perpendicular work. Without the ornate or magnificent character of many of the churches of the neighbourhood, it presents several features of interest; the details for the most part are good, and are pretty well executed, and the general lines of the exterior form a very picturesque whole.

THE TOWER is plain, without buttresses, about two diameters and ahalf high, is divided into two stages, and has on the top an open-work parapet of lozenges quatrefoiled, with small crocketed pinnacles at the angles. It is surmounted by a low octagonal spire of singular outline, a string-course running round it at about two-thirds of its height, above which the ribs rise in such a manner as to meet in a more acute angle than their first direction would have produced. The water is delivered from the tower by eight gurgoyles disposed near the angles. On each side of the upper stage of the tower is a small two-light window without a drip, the lights trefoiled in the head and filled in with quatrefoiled lozenges; and in the lower stage on the west side is a door having a four-centered arch and label, with square flowers, six on each side, in the hollow moulding of its architrave; and above this a window of three lights. At the south-eastern angle of the tower is an octagonal staircase-turret, the top of which rises a little above the tower parapet, and has two-light paneling on the sides.

THE NAVE is 42 feet 6 inches in length by 19 feet in width. It is separated from the tower by a large arch with a good archivolt moulding, and from the aisle on the north by four arches. On its south side is the Norman doorway from the porch, between two windows; of which one is now without tracery, but the other, which is square-headed, retains its mullions, and has on the interior an almost flat curtain arch.

THE PIERS which support the arches between the nave and aisle are very small, and have proved hardly adequate to their purpose, as the weight of the roof of the nave has forced them out of the perpendicular, and they incline considerably to the north. They exhibit in their horizontal section the arrangement so common in this style-four circular shafts set diagonally with four hollow mouldings between. The shafts have plain capitals, from which spring drop-arches with a good suite of mouldings. There is no clerestory.

THE NORTH AISLE has two windows in its length and one at its west end, but the tracery has been removed from them all. At its northeastern corner is a staircase-turret, which must be described when we return to the exterior. The width of the aisle is 11 feet; the diameter of the piers 1 foot 9 inches.

THE CHANCEL is a double square 34 feet in length. It had originally two windows on the north side, but these have been built up. At the east end it has a four-light window, divided into two principal compartments, the lights ogee-headed and cinque-foiled, and the smaller lights above trefoiled in the head.

A door, a three-light window, a piscina, and 2 sedilia are on the south side of the chancel. Perhaps a portion of the window-seat, though without a canopy, may have been used as a third sedile. The sill of the window has internally no further projection than the mullions; and at the depth of 3 feet 10 inches beneath it is a stone slab or window-seat (continued two-thirds the width of the window), at one end of which, nearest the altar, is the piscina, an octagonal orifice only, not placed as is usual in a niche or beneath a canopy; but close to it, obliquely cut into the window-jamb, is a very small aumbrye, intended no doubt to answer the same purpose (whatever that may have been,) as the shelf usually met with in piscina. At the bottom of the shallow bason of the piscina a leaf is sculptured, with two or three holes for the escape of the water.

If any doubt were yet entertained that the low window-seat so frequently met with in chancels was intended to answer the purpose of sedilia, that in Worle church might go far to remove it, as one third in length of this is lower than the other portion; lower, that is to say, than the part which contains the piscina, and exactly on a level with the seats beneath the canopies, whilst in width it is about equal to those.

The sedilia are of equal height, not to the horizontal slab only but to the spring of their arches; the canopy of that to the westward however is lower than the other, a more obtuse arch being used. From the stones on which the finials were sculptured having been extracted from the wall, it is probable that small figures of saints, or, perhaps, emblems of the crucifixion, were used as terminations to the canopies, and torn away by the destructive zeal of the reformers or puritans.

There is a hagioscope on the north side of the chancel-arch; it is a narrow square-headed aperture, without any kind of ornament.

At the south-eastern corner of the nave, against the chancel-arch, is a handsome hexagonal stone pulpit, of good design, though not very well executed. It closely resembles others at Hutton and Kew-Stoke, as well as a more elaborate one at Banwell;-they are all variations of one type, executed about the same period, and probably by the same artists. The Font, which is of Norman date, is placed against the second pier of the nave; it is lined with lead.

Some elaborate stalls with well-carved misereres are preserved in a pew in the chancel; they were probably brought to this church on the desecration of the neighbouring priory of Woodspring.

The Nave and Chancel have obtuse pointed roofs, divided into squares by longitudinal and transverse ribs of oak, with flowers at the intersections. There is a flat ceiling to the aisle, but corbels on the walls shew that it originally had, or was intended to have, a roof of open woodwork.

There is a plain Norman doorway of high proportions from the south porch into the nave. The greater part of its archivolt is gone, but a

shaft remains entire on one side, and the capital and base of that corresponding to it.

We return now to the exterior. On the north side of the church are some good buttresses of two stages, with pinnacles, set diagonally, rising from them; and a parapet similar to that round the tower is carried round the north aisle, with large gurgoyles below the pinnacles. The drip returns are stopped against the buttresses, but continued as a string-course across those compartments which are without windows. There is a turret, as already mentioned, at the north-east corner of the aisle, containing a staircase which formerly conducted to the leads with which the north aisle is covered; but the door has been stopped up, in consequence, as it is said, of its having been discovered that smugglers were in the habit of concealing contraband goods on the roof. The turret is of three stages, the upper one paneled, and is topped with a small spirelet.

A base-moulding goes round the aisle and chancel, but is not continued along the other parts of the church.

The turret and pierced parapet of the north aisle, seen in conjunction with the tower, render the view of this church from the N. E. particularly picturesque; and much of the good effect produced is owing to the repetition on a smaller scale of the spire-form in the turret-head.

Worle church is kept in neat order, but is disfigured in the interior by a modern altar-screen, by pews in the chancel, a small gallery at the west end, and a boarded partition separating the tower from the nave; the exterior is cloaked up in a warm coat of rough-cast, and the crosses have disappeared from the gable ends. Both interior and exterior have suffered from the tracery having been removed from five of the windows.

The church of Worle is dedicated to St. Martin; the living is a vicarage in the deanery of Axbridge, and is in the gift of the crown. It was appropriated to the priory of Woodspring, and was valued, in 1292, at 8 marks.

The following mention of Worle is extracted from Domesday Book. "Walter de Dowai holds of the King Worle-Esgar held it in the time of King Edward, and gelded for six hides and a half. The arable is fifteen carucates. In demesne are four carucates, and five servants, and twenty-two villanes, and three cottagers, with nine ploughs. There are fifty acres of meadow pasture, thirteen furlongs long, and two furlongs broad. It was worth ten pounds, now seven pounds."

The manor of Worle was afterwards attached to the barony of Oakhampton in Devonshire, and was successively held by the families of Redvers, or Rivers, and De Courtney. On the death of Sir William de Courtney, the last of that family, and the founder of the neighbouring priory of Woodspring, it came into possession of his kinsman, Sir Vitalis Engaine, in the second year of Henry III. He died 34 years after, and left the manor between his two sons, of whom the eldest, Henry, gave his moiety to the prior and convent of Woodspring; and in this he was imitated by his brother, who succeeding to the patrimonial inheritance in the 56th year of Henry III., contributed the other moiety. It was held by the monks until their dissolution, when it was

granted to Sir William St. Loe, Knight. Afterwards, it successively passed into the families of Wallys and Coker, of Dorsetshire, and Wyndham, of Norfolk. William Wyndham, who became possessed of it in 1749, sold it to James Bishop, since which it has been held by different members of the family of Ash.*

A-Stone Pulpit in Kewstoke Church. B-Plan of Ditto. C-Panel of Pulpit in Worle Church.

On the northern declivity of Worle Hill, near its eastern part, in a situation which commands a beautiful view of the Severn channel and of the extensive flats which terminate towards the north in the hills of Woodspring, stands the small church of Kewstoke; a building consist.. ing of a nave, a chancel, south-porch, western tower, and a little chapel on its south side at present used as a vestry.

In the exterior there is little that is worthy of particular notice, from peculiarity or beauty. The tower is plain, and consists externally of two stages, internally of three: at its south-east angle is an octagonal staircase-turret, paneled at top, and terminated by a small spire, round the base of which runs a Tudor flower: at the other corners are diagonal

*Collinson's Somerset.