221 



From the discrepancies thus found to occur among the round 

 lowers, it would appear that though in their general character they 

 were alike, and though following a peculiar and original model 

 they were built, more patrio, after the manner of the country, as 

 Giraldus Cambrensis expresses it, yet, that there was such a variety 

 in the modes of building, finishing, and ornamenting, as well as in 

 the excellence of the work, as must lead to the conclusion, that the 

 custom of building towers of this description prevailed through a 

 considerable period of time, that they were not all built after one 

 precise pattern, neither by one set of workmen, nor in the same 

 age, as has been imagined.* 



Nothing would tend to throw more light on this subject than a 

 collection of designs, and accurate descriptions of all the yet ex- 

 isting towers, done on a scale of sufficient size to give distinctly 

 all the details ; to these views should be added an account not only 

 of the present state and name, but of all the names and traditions 

 connected with each. 



Such a work would greatly assist the antiquary in his search 

 for truth, which is said to dwell at the bottom of a well — the well of 

 time. 



The low stone-roofed buildings, before alluded to, so greatly 



* Dr. Ledwich, in his Irish Antiquities, supposes our towers to be contemporaneous with 

 Grymbald's crypt at Oxford, because there are two circular towers to that church : but that has 

 been satisfactorily proved both by Mr. Brewer in his Beauties of Ireland (Introduction, p. cv.) 

 and by Britton in the fifth volume of his Antiquities, (p. 201) to be wholly a Norman building, 

 and not referable to the early age in which, on the authority of a doubtful passage in Camden, 

 it has been placed. The towers are only round turrets, forming a part of the eastern fa9ade. 

 The ancient cylindrical towers in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Lincolnshire, which Dr. Ledwich also 

 brings forward as examples of round towers having been frequent, and always used as belfries, 

 Mr. Brewer, who has seen both them and the Irish towers, declares to be totally dissimilar, both 

 in construction and appearance. — Introduction, p, cviii. 



