250 Britford Church. 
the purpose of keeping the arch stones in their places. The work 
has been so cut about as to make it difficult to recover the original 
design. This archway had at some period been converted into a 
doorway, when a cut was made in the jamb for dropping in a bar. 
At a later date it was walled up, and was re-opened at the late 
_ restoration. 
I think it probable that there may have existed formerly a fourth 
arch, opposite to this one, near the west end of the north wall, and 
that four may have been the whole number. The chureh must have 
had a chancel of some kind, possibly an apse. It is not unlikely 
that the nave and aisles of this early church may have remained, 
comparatively unaltered, till the great conversion of the church in 
the fourteenth century, when the present tower (exclusive of the 
upper part which is modern), transepts, and chancel were built, and — 
the nave altered, and that then the aisles of the early church were 
removed. 
In the two south arches, but not in the north arch, are marks 
where iron bars have been fixed in the masonry, the insertion of 
which was not part of the original work. This seems to show that 
at one time the south aisle was shut off by a grating or grille. 
It is necessary also to notice the character of the mortar. In the 
south archway the tile arch has very wide joints of pink mortar, 
made with pounded brick. It so happens that on the jambs both 
inside and out, where the joints are tolerably wide, a good deal of 
the mortar has been picked out or fallen out, and in what remains 
I could only in one place trace a slight indication of pounded brick ; 
but the examination has been rendered difficult owing to the fact 
that the whole inner or north side of the archway has been washed 
over with some pink colour, probably in medieval times. However, 
this colouring is confined to that side, and at a point beneath the 
arch where the impost is broken away I observed, by the red stain 
on that part of the pilaster which has been laid bare by the fracture, 
that it was fixed into the mortice in the impost with the same pink 
mortar, the lower edge of the stain corresponding exactly with the 
under side of the broken impost. This joint is a very close one. 
In the north arch all the joints are very close, and I observed there 
