DEVON 



a modern purpose for which such a building, 

 little affected by changes of external tempera- 

 ture, is by no means ill-suited. Nor need we 

 look upon the change as being in any way a 

 desecration. Was it not once the rearing-house 

 for future food.-^ It has to-day advanced a stage 

 in that food's history, slightly changed its nature 

 — nothing more. And if, as in this case, the 

 change insures the building being kept in good 

 condition and repair, what could we well desire 

 further. 



At Warleigh House, Tamerton Foliot, near 

 Plymouth, is a good circular brickdovecote; the 

 doorway, high and narrow — six feet high by 

 two feet nine inches wide — is of granite. The 

 building has a high-pitched roof of slate, with 

 open cupola upon the top. The walls are nearly 

 three feet thick, and over twenty feet in height. 

 There are nearly five hundred nest-holes, and 

 the former presence of a potence is made clear 

 by the survival of the granite base which took 

 the lower socket of the upright beam. Some 

 portions of the dwelling-house date from the 

 reign of Stephen, and the dovecote is quite 

 probably of little less antiquity. 



211 



