in this part are visible in the aisle wall. Two lancet windows high up
are of the same date as the porch, and are blocked by the chamber
since constructed above St. Thomas's Chapel, and parts of other window
jambs are seen at different levels.

The Archdeacon's Chapel or consistory court, to the west of the porch,
is now one of the most interesting parts of the church.

It is divided from the north aisle by two lofty arches with an
octagonal column. The original dedication is not known, but in 1588 it
was already used as an Ecclesiastical Court, and the next year a
bishop's seat was made for use in it. In the south-west angle is a
tall, narrow recess, once closed by a door. Lockers of this
description were constructed for the safe keeping of the shaft of the
processional cross, and for the staves of banners. On the east side
the roof now cuts across the head of a window of reticulated tracery
of the early fourteenth century. Most of the monuments have been
brought hither from various parts of the church; only two or three are
of general interest. A late Perpendicular canopied tomb, rudely carved
and badly fitted together, stands against the north wall, but there is
nothing to show whom it commemorates. On the east wall is the monument
of Dr. Philemon Holland, with a long Latin epitaph. Fuller says of
him: "he was the translator general in his age, so that those books
alone of his turning into English will make a country gentleman a
competent library for historians." Born at Chelmsford in 1551 he
settled at Coventry in 1595, was usher and then master of St. John's
Free School for twenty-eight years, and died in 1636 in his
eighty-fifth year. During his usher-ship Dugdale was a pupil of the
school.