A Handbook to St Mary Redcliffe Church, J. Chilcott 1848

sr. MARY REDCLIFFE CHURCH. 35
Under the north end of the great cross aisle, is a large
room, at the east end of which was a fire-place. The
number of rooms in this building which bear indications
of having been inhabited, were probably assigned to
chantry priests, poor scholars, and other members of the
church. The will of Belinus Nansmoen, dated March
20th, 1416, provides for many poor scholars, and cho
risters, and for several chaplains, attached to the church,
which renders the supposition not improbable that the
apartment above alluded to was a common dining room,
there being formerly a communication to it out of the
north aisle of the church, where a door and stone stair
case are stopped up, by which there was a descent into
the room. It has long since been converted into a place
of burial, and is now known as the crypt.
Although the church had been liberally endowed, at
different times, with large estates for the support of the
fabric and the divine offices celebrated therein, yet so
dishonestly were its affairs administered during the
Commonwealth, and its revenues wasted, that it was
found impossible, at the Restoration, wholly to repair
the mischief which had been committed. Neither did
the structure itself escape the ravages of the over-righte
ous and senseless fanatics of those days; many of its
ornaments, and all the lofty pinnacles, which added so
much to its external beauty, were torn down, and have
not since been rebuilt. Within, brass plates were stolen
from the monuments, and their decorations mutilated
and destroyed; the organ was broken down, and the
bibles, prayer books, books of homilies, cushions, cas
socks, and all the moveable furniture of the church,