BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



should fall on iron spikes placed upright in the 

 ground; but at the Dairy Farm these spikes, 

 if ever they existed, have now disappeared; 

 removed, quite possibly, by some humane pro- 

 prietor of pigeons, who, while anxious to pro- 

 tecthis birds, was yet unwillingtopushmatters 

 to extremes against the rats. 



In giving to the dovecotes of this county all 

 the space that can be spared, we have but 

 skimmed the cream, and that with a light hand. 

 Of more than seventy or eighty still surviving 

 in the county, many others well deserve to be 

 recorded, though passed over here. The brief- 

 est mention must be made, however, of the 

 specimen at Cowarne Court, near Bromyard, 

 This, although now covered by a cone-shaped 

 roof of gentle slope, exhibits clear internal 

 evidence of having once been vaulted like the 

 Garway specimen. Its walls, too, are three feet 

 nine inches thick, good proof of ripe old age. 



At Foxley, a fine house in Yazor parish, on 

 the broad road running west from Hereford to 

 Hay, is the sole remnantof theformer mansion 

 of redbrick, adovecote which, while presenting 

 few other features of interest, is the only Here- 

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