The oldest monument in the church was a stone cross-legged effigy of a
warrior in armour, dating from about the year 1300; while the plainest
was the image of a female corpse in a shroud, on a gravestone, who was
named ... Elysebeth ...
The which decessed the yeare that is goone,
A thousand four hundred neynty and oone.
The church was dedicated to St. Barloke, probably one of the ancient
British Divines.
On returning to Ellastone we learned that the inn was associated with
"George Eliot," whose works we had heard of but had not read. We were
under the impression that the author was a man, and were therefore
surprised to find that "George Eliot" was only the _nom de plume_ of a
lady whose name was Marian Evans. Her grandfather was the village
wheelwright and blacksmith at Ellastone, and the prototype of "Adam
Bede" in her famous novel of that name.
[Illustration: GEORGE ELLIOT'S "DONNITHORPE ARMS," ELLASTONE.]
It has been said that no one has ever drawn a landscape more graphically
than Marian Evans, and the names of places are so thinly veiled that if
we had read the book we could easily have traced the country covered by
"Adam Bede.
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