DALE church: ITS STRUCTURAL PECULIARITIES. l^^ 



(k, l) has always been an open one as at present. The aisle has 

 three small square-headed lights — an east (e), and two south 

 ones (f, g). On the west wall may be traced the outline of a 

 pointed doorway (h), which formerly communicated with the old 

 Church House. Many years ago this house was an inn, and its 

 bar-room served as the vestry. Whether the minister of the time 

 was observed to be a little uncertain after retiring to don his 

 Geneva gown, or, less concretely, there was a growing antipathy 

 against this close association of things spiritual and spirituous, 

 tradition is silent; but half-a-century ago the old doorway was 

 built up as we see it now. In plan, then, the structure presents a 

 northern half elongated eastwards to forma sacrarium, and a south 

 aisle a little larger than the nave area, the total internal breadth 

 being 25 feet, and length 26 feet 6 inches. 



We will already have noticed that there is a second story. To 

 reach it we must go outside and mount some ugly modern steps 

 against the south wall. The reader who is not acquainted with 

 the eccentricities of Dale Church will wonder what this story is 

 used for. A school ? Well, yes — Sunday classes are, I believe, 

 held there. But, as a matter of fact, part of the congregation 

 meets there. A sort of overflow meeting ? Not exactly. One 

 has heard of a Revivalist meeting in a barn, in which, when the 

 ground floor would accommodate no more hearers, the people 

 mounted to the floor above and 'heard the Gospel through its 

 gaping joints. This, however, is not the modus operandi aX Dale. 

 The floor there does not extend over the whole area, but stops 

 short at the chancel. So in a sense the minister surveys, from 

 his lofty pulpit in the chancel, the heavens above and the earth 

 beneath, and earth, as is seemly, catches up the strains of the 

 chorus above. 



This upper chamber runs across the Church, and its lofty roof 

 presents a gable north and south (as may be noticed in the 

 accompanying sketches), the minor roofs, those of the chancel 

 and Church House (old as well as new), having their axes east and 

 west, and dying into the former from opposite directions. The 

 chamber has a window at each end, immediately below the gable. 



