BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



orientation of the chancel; he tells them that 

 they will discover *'an unconsecrated weather- 

 cock upon the barn close by." Yet the applic- 

 ation of a church to secular as well as sacred 

 uses was, in old times, very far from being un- 

 known. The tower was frequently used as a 

 watch-station and as a point of vantage whence 

 there might be shown a beacon light. Men 

 slept in churches, feasted in them, even some- 

 times fought; St. Paul's Cathedral was at once a 

 market-placeand public thoroughfare. It need, 

 then, cause no very great surprise to find some 

 portion of a church devoted to the purpose of 

 a pigeon-house. 



There is a very interesting Herefordshire 

 instance of this having been the case. Some 

 ten miles west of Hereford, and a short dis- 

 tance from the former market town of Weo- 

 bley, is the small village of Sarnesfield. The 

 place consists of littlebut the Court and church, 

 the churchyard opening from the garden of the 

 mansion-house. 



The churchyard has more interests than the 

 one with which we are immediately concerned. 

 Close to the timber porch before the church's 

 ii8 



