BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



Staunton, who died in 1288, *'held a capital 

 messuage and garden, a dovecot, three water- 

 mills, two groves of eight acres in all, ten acres 

 of meadow, and 2 1 6 acres of arable land. " 



We have it on the authority of the Evesham 

 Chronicles that Abbot Randulph, whose ten- 

 ure of office dated from 12 14 to 1229, brought 

 about, among other improvementsonhislands, 

 the erection of dovecotes at Offenham, Ham- 

 stone, Wickhampton,and Ombresley. At Off- 

 enham there still is, attached to other build- 

 ings, a very small dovecote, nine feet by ten; it 

 is much out of repair, the timber framing being 

 filled in with mixed brick and lath and plaster. 

 But this was certainly not that which Abbot 

 Randulph built; and the same may be said of 

 the far more attractive specimen at Hawford, 

 Ombresley, built upon a stone foundation, 

 seventeen feet square, four-gabled, and with 

 an open lantern in the roof The lower part has 

 been converted tothepurposeof a coach-house, 

 and nest-holes remain on two sides only of the 

 upper floor. To the dilapidated dovecote at 

 Oddingley, still containing six hundred nests, 

 is attached the sinister story of its having form- 

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