BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



birds. Some are blocked up, but the original 

 number was about four dozen, leading to four 

 of the tiers. The holes take their places in order 

 among the nest-holes proper, and were clearly 

 no afterthought, but so constructed when the 

 dovecote was built. 



This very rare arrangement will be found re- 

 peated in some Cornish specimens, but seems 

 to be unknown elsewhere. It would certainly 

 lay the building open to attacks by rats and 

 other vermin, and may probably have been a- 

 bandoned upon that account. 



The date of the Angle Hall dovecote has 

 been put at the twelfth or thirteenth century, 

 and, with the exception of theratherlargedoor- 

 way, everything about the building points to 

 its great age. Angle Castle, of which ruins still 

 remain some hundred yards away, was, from 

 1 2 15, inhabited for nearly two centuries and a 

 half by the De Angulo and Shirburn families. 

 In 1447 Edward de Shirburn dedicated to St. 

 Anthony a little chapel which still stands in the 

 churchyard. 



Dovecotes rather similar in plan and general 

 detail to the Angle specimen — always except- 

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