Through the influence of Dr. Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, they were allowed to purchase the church of that wholesale sin-salesman, Henry viii.; but after the parish had obtained the grant of the church, they let the Lady Chapel to one Wyat, a baker, who converted it into a bake-house.  He stopped up the two doors which communicated with the aisles of the church, and the two which opened into the chancel, and which, though visible, still remain masoned up.[1] In 1607, Mr. Henry Wilson, tenant of the Chapel of the Holy Virgin, found himself inconvenienced by a tomb “of a certain cade,” and applied to the vestry for its removal, which was very “friendly” consented to, “making the place up again in any reasonable sort."[2] In this state it continued till the year 1624, when the vestry restored it to its original condition, at an expense of two hundred pounds.  “More than that sum,” observes the Rev. Mr. Nightingale, “I should conceive would now be required to repair this venerable part of St. Saviour’s Church in such a manner as is absolutely necessary.  The pillars have in a great degree lost their perpendicular position:  the mouldings and mullions of the windows are distorted in the most shameful manner; the walls are rapidly hastening to their final decay; and the whole place appears to be destined to become once more the resort of hogs and vermin of every description.  That this should be the case is a great disgrace to the parish, and an insult to the diocese, in which St. Saviour’s Church holds so conspicuous a character."[3]

The roof of the Chapel is divided into nine groined arches, supported by six octangular pillars in two rows, having small circular columns at the four points.  At the back of the altar-screen of the church[4] are some tracery compartments, probably, according to Mr. Bray, once affording through them a view of this chapel.  In the east end, on the north side, are three lancet-shaped windows, forming one great window, divided by slender pillars, and having mouldings, with zig-zag ornaments.  The tracery windows on the south side are masoned up, but much of the original tracery remains.  At the north-east corner are remains of sharp-pointed arches; here also is an enclosure with table, desk, and elevated seat.  This part is, properly speaking, the Bishop’s Court; but this name is common to the whole chapel, in which the Bishop of Winchester holds his Court; and in which are held the visitations for the Deanery of Southwark.

The annexed view was taken from the north-west entrance, and shows the character of the groined roof, the supporting pillars, and the entrance to the Bishop’s Chapel adjoining, by an ascent of two steps; this Chapel being named from the Tomb of Bishop Andrews, formerly standing in the centre of it.  We recommend the reader to a clever paper in the Gentleman’s Megazine for the present month, in which the writer proves that Our Lady’s Chapel, so far from being an excrescence, as has been idly stated, “bears the same relation to the church an the head does to the body.”