22 Amesbury Church. Reasons for thinking that it 
conclusive, is an argument that it was not a door of entrance into 
the Church, and that therefore the Church never extended any 
further west than at present. Mr. Kemm also seems to think that 
it did not communicate with the Church, though, if the nave has 
been shortened, as he wishes to make out, it must have done so. ‘ 
Mr. Butterfield also altered the south end of the south transept, 
and, in that case, he may have been quite justified. Mr. Kemm 
says there was formerly there “a circular-headed door and window, 
with a flat oval window over, of the date 1721, quite out of keeping 
with a Gothic building.’ 
Mr. Butterfield also built an unsightly turret, on the exterior of 
the Church, at or near the junction of the chancel and north 
transept, evidently to replace a turret shown on Sir Richard Hoare’s 
plan, inside the transept, which must have been a great obstruction 
of the space, and could hardly be original. Mr. Kemm says :— 
“The present tower seems not to have been intended to carry bells, 
but as a lantern to the building.” That seems probable. There 
were four bells, at the Dissolution, in the steeple of the Priory 
Church. Probably, not more than one might be required, before 
that date, for the Parish Church. There are now six bells, besides 
a small priest’s bell, the two earliest of which were founded or cast 
by J. Wells, of Aldbourne, in 1619, one being given by Frances, 
third wife of Edward, Earl of Hertford, son of the Protector 
Somerset. I think the turret, in the transept, shown by Sir Richard 
Hoare, was probably built to afford access to the present belfry, 
when it became necessary to have several bells. 
It is known that some portion of the monastic buildings stood 
on the site of the present Abbey House. I understand that the 
distance, from that house to the present Church, is about 850 feet. 
This distance is a very great one, in any case, on the supposition 
that the present Church was the Priory Church, though we are 
informed that the monastery and its precincts, including garden, 
orchards, fish-ponds, cemetery, &c., covered twelve acres of 
ground. 
Mr. Kemm says that he remembered when the last visible re- 
maining portion of the ancient domestic buildings of the monastery 
