[Illustration: _Photo. R.W. Dugdale._ THE SAXON CHAPEL.]
About eighty yards or so from the Church of St. Mary at Deerhurst was discovered in 1885 in property known as _Abbot's Court_, a second Saxon building. It was proved, after careful examination, that this was a chapel, and the discovery of this fact threw considerable light upon the inscribed stone in the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, which had been removed thither in 1675, bearing the inscription--
+-----------------------------------+ | † ODDA DVX IVSSIT HANC | | REGIAM AVLAM CONSTRVI | | ATQVE DEDICARI IN HONO- | | RĒ S̄ TRINITATIS PRO ANIMA GER | | MANI SVI ÆLFRICI QVE DE HOC | | LOCO ASSV̄PTA. EALDREDVS VERO | | EP̄S̄ QVI EANDĒ DEDICAVIT II IDI | | BVS AP̄̄L̄, XIIII AVTĒ ANNOS REG | | NI EADWARDI REGIS ANGLORV̄. | +-----------------------------------+
_I.e._ to say in English: "† Duke Odda ordered this Royal Hall to be built and dedicated to the honour of the Holy Trinity for the soul of his brother Ælfric which was taken up from this place. Bishop Ealdred it was who dedicated the same on the 12th April in the 14th year of the reign of Edward, King of the English."
[Illustration: _From "The Archæological Journal."_]
This stone, of which a facsimile has been erected in this Saxon chapel, was for many years assumed to refer to the larger church at Deerhurst, but as soon as the smaller chapel was discovered, it was seen that the inscription could only refer to that building. The finding of a second stone, the dedication slab of an altar, in a chimney-stack, also seemed to confirm the idea that the building, with its nave, its chancel arch, and its chancel, was the chapel dedicated in 1056 by Earl Odda.
The dedication stone has been mutilated by being converted into the topmost portion of a window, and the inscription admits of two interpretations. What remains is here shown. This may mean "_In honorem sanctæ Trinitatis hoc altare dedicatum est_," or, as Mr. Micklethwaite suggests, "_In honorem Sancti Petri[32] apli (apostoli) hoc altare dedicatum est._"
The chapel consists of a nave 25 feet 6 inches in length by 15 feet 10 inches in breadth, and a chancel 14 feet by 11 feet 3 inches, entered by a round-headed arch 6 feet 6 inches in width and 10 feet in height.[33]