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Devizes and Bromham, October 16th, 1900. The weather was 
not very genial when ten Members of the Field Club and a 
visitor started for Devizes. Travelling, away from a main line, 
is seldom expeditious, and there was a long wait at Trowbridge, 
which some of the Members utilised by paying a visit to the fine 
Parish Church of St. James, where in the chancel is a handsome 
marble monument by Baily, of Bristol, to George Crabbe, the 
poet, rector of Trowbridge, who died in 1832. 
Proceeding to Devizes, the party, noting en route the warning 
to perjurers inscribed on the Market Cross, visited the Church of 
_ St. Mary the Virgin. The church is of Norman foundation, and 
the door of the porch is a very beautiful specimen of Norman 
transition. The chancel is Norman, with a vaulted roof resting 
on well carved capitals. The arcade at the east end is a careful 
restoration, the window above was inserted in 1852 when the 
church was repaired. 
The most interesting feature of the outside of the church is a 
beautiful statue of the Virgin and Child, which stands in a rich 
tabernacle in the usual position of the sancte bell. As Cromwell’s 
soldiers were in Trowbridge, it seems probable that the Protector, 
who never injured a church more than he could help, must have 
specially interfered for the preservation of this image. 
Passing through Monday Market Street and by Brittox Street 
—which latter name is corrupted from bretesque, the wooden 
drawbridge tower of the castle—the Church of St. John the 
Baptist was reached. This, as well as the Church of St. Mary, 
seems to have been founded by Bishop Roger, of Sarum, the 
' great architectural genius of the twelfth century, this of St. John 
being the earlier of the two churches. The grand old Norman 
tower still stands in all its glory, resembling that of Tewkesbury 
Abbey, with a semi-circular stair turret. Inside, the tower arches 
on the east and west are semi-circular, while the other two are 
pointed. Externally, even more than in the interior, it is 
noticeable how the Norman work has been cut into for the 
