184 DALE CHURCH : ITS STRUCTURAL PECULIARITIES. 



the house of 1652 and its predecessor. Where the narrow panel- 

 work ended eastward on the north side, that is, at the end of the 

 old parlour, " the old return of the parlour angle at the north 

 door-way could be seen from the mortises on the lender side of the 

 beam above the foot of the stairs,'' indicating that the original 

 north wall from this point to the Church was set back somewhat, 

 as indicated by the dotted lines on the plan. The older walls 

 rested upon a substantial stone plinth, that of the west end still 

 remaining. The north bow window (second story) of the old 

 house is now inserted in the south wall of the new house.* 



AVe now return to the Church. The fragment of Norman 

 abacus is strongly suggestive of a former arcade, and Mr. Kerry 

 thought this conclusive when he discovered a large abutment (n) 

 on the west wall, hidden by the old Church House. It turns out, 

 however, that this projecting mass of masonry — too large and 

 broad for the buttress of so small a building — -was quite out of the 

 line of the supposed arcade, being, instead, somewhat centrally 

 placed at the back of the nave. I have little doubt that it was 

 the basement of a bell-turret, probably demolished during the 

 fifteenth-century alterations. AVhile the abacus indicates an 

 arched opening of some sort, a peculiarity of the projection in 

 which it is placed is, or, at least, seems to be, in itself fatal to the 

 arcade theory. Instead of presenting a neatly trimmed vertical 

 face to t/te ground, as we would expect the respond of an arcade 

 to do, it begins to rudely slope forward about two feet below 

 the abacus, as though the opening had a sill which was afterwards 

 hacked away. For the same reason it could not have been a 

 doorway. It was certainly not a window. That the chancel 

 south wall did extend further west, is tolerably proved by the fact 

 that the eastern face of post K, which is in the central line of 

 this wall, is left />/ain. If it did not extend thus far, this surface 

 would almost certainly have received mouldings — the plainness of 

 the surface next the aisle counting for nothing, as all the timbers 



* An old post-and-panel house, undoubtedly a relic of monastic times, near 

 the ruins of the Gatehouse, should be compared with the older portions of the 

 old Church House. It is apparently of the same date. 



