BURYING IN CHURCH WALLS.

(Vol. ii., p. 513.)

MR. W. DURRANT COOPER has mentioned some instances of burials in the walls
of churches; it is not however clear whether in these the monument, or
coffin lid, is in the inside or the outside of the wall.

Stone coffin lids, with and without effigies, are very frequently found
placed under low arches hollowed in the wall in the _interior_ of the
church: tombs placed in the _exterior_ of the wall are much less common;
and the singularity of their position, leads one to look for some peculiar
reason for it. Tradition often accounts for it by such stories as those
mentioned by MR. COOPER. Such is the case with a handsome canopied tomb (I
think with an effigy) on the south side of the choir of the cathedral of
Lichfield, where we are told that the person interred died under censure of
the church. Other instances which I have noticed, are, at--

Little Casterton, Rutland.--Tomb, with an effigy, apparently of an
ecclesiastic, but much decayed, of the 13th century, in the south wall of
the nave.

Warbleton, Sussex.--Circular arch over a sort of altar tomb, no effigy
remains. Probably of the earlier half of the 13th century. In the south
wall of chancel.

Basildon, Berks.--A very elegant canopy. There was once an effigy, now
destroyed, with the tomb, and a door made under the canopy! About 1300. In
the south wall of the chancel.