BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



worked ashlar, with the corner-stones of rustic 

 work. The door, six feet in height, but less than 

 three feet wide, has evidently been enlarged; 

 and two out of three windows are certainly- 

 modern. The house, containing over thirteen 

 hundred nest-holes, is now empty, and the holes 

 by which the birds once entered have been 

 closed. 



Finally, a rather interesting dovecote is to 

 be seen at Mears Ashby, or Ashby Mares, a 

 pleasant village about eight miles from Nor- 

 thampton, on the Wellingborough road. It 

 stands upon a sloping bank immediately to the 

 east of the fine old Elizabethan hall, a building 

 on the porch and leaden water-pipes of which ap- 

 pears the date 1637. 



The dovecote is rectangular, with slightly 

 ''battered" walls some three feet thick. On both 

 the east and west sides is a little window, with 

 a semicircular alighting-ledge immediately in 

 front. The roof is topped by a small wooden 

 lantern, with nine panes of glass in each of the 

 four sides. 



Here, as so frequently elsewhere, the door- 

 way deserves attention. Its outside measure- 

 108 



