Bells Cathedrals: The Priory Church of St. Bartholomew-the-Great, Smithfield | Page 6

worship, while the chancel was reserved for the monastic services, with a raised presbytery for the high altar at its eastern end--a threefold division providing for the ancient ritual arrangement.
In the ambulatory on the northern side of the choir there were apparently three chapels, besides Bishop Walden's chantry, which was the easternmost of the series, and is supposed to have had a semicircular apse. There was a similar, but rather smaller, chapel opposite to it on the south side, and between it and the south transept a sacristy, erected about 1350.
Outside the Lady Chapel lay the cemetery of the Canons, on the favourite (south) side for burials. The cloister formed a large quadrangle attached to the south aisle. The Prior's residence was probably on the western side of the quadrangle, and on the south there was a range of buildings comprising the refectory, buttery, and kitchen, with the Close beyond them.
Opening into the cloister on the east was the Chapter House, an oblong structure, adjoining which, on the south, was the dormitory, overlooking the Mulberry Gardens on the east, and the Close on its western side.[12]
[Illustration: PLAN, PARTLY CONJECTURAL, OF THE MONASTIC BUILDINGS AT THE DISSOLUTION
A Lady Chapel. B Founder's tomb. C Bishop Walden's chantry. D Pulpit (destroyed 1828). EE Chapels (conjectural). F Sacristy (c. 1350). G North transept. H Central tower and ritual choir. I South transept. K Parish altar. L Nave (c. 1250) destroyed at the Dissolution. M Chapter House (destroyed by fire 1830). N Dormitory (undercroft destroyed about 1870). O Parlour. P Kitchen. Q Buttery. R Refectory.]
The work of demolition commenced immediately after the transfer of the property to Henry VIII, when the nave was destroyed; and as soon as Sir Richard Rich came into possession, he started pulling down the buildings for the sake of the materials, which were used in the erection of new houses where the old had formerly stood, as well as on the gardens and orchards around them. By the time of Queen Elizabeth the district had become a favourite residential quarter for great people, who gradually disappeared with the growth of London, and the migration of gentry westwards, when the houses vacated in Smithfield were let off in tenements to the same sort of poor people who now share the neighbourhood with merchants and shopkeepers.
During Elizabeth's reign the church had been allowed to get into a very dilapidated state, and that it was in some danger of total destruction appears from a letter written by Edmund Grindal in 1563, while he was Bishop of London, to Sir William Cecil, proposing to take the lead from the roof, and transfer it to St. Paul's Cathedral:
St. Bartholomew's Churche, adjoining to my L. Rich's house, is in decaye, and so increaseth dailye. It hath an heavie coate of lead, wch wolde doe a verie goode service for the Mother Churche of Powles. I have obtayned my L. Rich's goode wishes, and if I coulde obteyne my L. Chiefe Justice of the K. Benche and Sir Walter Mildmaye's assente, I wolde not doubte to have the assente also of the whole parishe, that ye leade might goe to the coveringe of Powles.... Now remayneth only this scruple--How shall the parisshe be providett of a churche? That is thus answered: There is an house adjoininge, wch was the Fratrie, as they termed it, a very fayre and a large house, and indeed al-readye: if it were purged, it lacketh nothinge but the name of a churche; is well buylded of free stone, garnished inwarde aboute with marble pyllers, large windowes, etc. I assure you, without partialitie, if it were roofed up, it were farre more beautiful and conveniente than the other. Yt is provided with goode sclate. If we mighte have the leade, we wolde compownde with my L. Rich for convertinge the said Fratrie to a Churche, and wee wylle also supplye all imperfections of the same, and not desire the p'isshe to remove tylle the other be meete and conveniente to goe to.[13]
Lord Rich thought favourably of the proposal; but that fears were entertained elsewhere would seem probable from a second letter, in which Grindal writes as follows:
For S. Bartholomewes--I meane not to pulle it downe, but to change it for a Churche more conveniente ... unlesse some strange opinion shulde arise that prayer were more acceptable under leade than under sclate.
The long period of neglect and desecration which follows is rather to be inferred from the condition of the buildings in the early part of the nineteenth century than from any actual records respecting them. What that condition was in 1809 is described in two letters which appeared in "The Gentleman's Magazine" for March and April in that year. They were written in a spirit of indignation at the behaviour of "a powerful