438 Mr. PETEIE'S Inquiry into the Origin and 



the church, yet distinct from the church itself, has come to the conclusion, 

 that it designated the side aisles of the church, or that, sometimes, it may be a 

 particular division of it, consisting of one arch with its recess. But, until it 

 be more fully established than it has hitherto been, that the Anglo-Saxon 

 churches were decorated with side aisles, this conclusion can only be taken as 

 an ingenious conjecture. At all events it could not be understood as applied in 

 this manner to Irish churches, as there is not, I think, the slightest evidence to 

 be found in favour of the supposition, that any of them had ever been so con- 

 structed. On the other hand, Mr. Wilkin, in his able Description of Melbourne 

 church, Derbyshire, published in the XHIth Volume of the Archseologia, 

 while he concurs with Mr. Bentham that the porticos were within the church, 

 repudiates the supposition that they were the side aisles, or any portions of 

 them ; and expresses his opinion that the Saxon churches, in Bede's time, 

 probably had neither pillars nor side aisles. But, finding that in the church at 

 Melbourne, a church which he believes to be of the seventh century, a 

 portion of it at the west end was divided off from the nave, and subdivided 

 into three parts, he concludes, that these divisions were genuine specimens 

 of the porticos described by Bede and the other Saxon writers, and that they 

 should be denominated as the north, south, and middle porticoes. But, few, I 

 believe, will now be found to concur with Mr. Wilkin in his opinion as to the 

 antiquity of this church, which has both pillars and side aisles, and which is so 

 totally unlike in plan to the church of Dunwich, which in a former Essay 

 ( Archasologia, vol. xii.), he had described as a genuine Saxon building, having 

 neither pillars nor side aisles, and which is divided into three apartments, 

 which he calls the ante-temple, the temple, and the sanctuary. Mr. Wilkin, 

 indeed, himself perceived this want of agreement in his two opinions, and tried 

 to get over it by the statement that it is probable that the ante-temple, which in 

 this instance (Dunwich) is the greatest portion of the church, is the part which 

 Bede names the portions. But on opinions so contradictory no reliance can 

 be placed, and till the Saxon antiquity of the church of Melbourne be fully 

 established, Mr. Wilkin's conclusion as to the nature and situation of the porticoes, 

 must be considered merely as an ingenious conjecture ; nor would it, if esta- 

 blished, throw any light on the nature or situation of the Irish erdams; as there 

 are not the slightest grounds for believing that any of the ancient Irish churches 



