THE 



WILTSHIRE MAGAZINE. 



MULTOEUM MANIBDS GEANDE LEVATUE ONUS." — Ovid. 



June, 1905. 



<Siipo$e)r |ntoeiias d t\t Castent Cljuvrlj on 

 €ugU0§ €cde5ia$ti(at ^vrljitattut, toit| sjeciitl 

 xdmwa to t^^ ^oldi ^cxmx m ^tocUm Cljitrclj. 



By the Rev. E. G. Penny, M.A. 

 fRead at the Warminster Meeting of the Society, July lUh, 1904;. 



The reason I have chosen this title is to be found in a paper read 

 some years ago before this Society, by the late Dr. Baroii, Eector of 

 Upton Scudaniore, on " Some Early Features of Stockton Church, 

 Wilts " ; wherein he infers that the influence of Greek ritual and 

 Church arrangement was considerable in this country in Anglo-Saxon 

 times, and he chiefly builds his argument on that most remarkable 

 and unusual feature which is found in this Church, viz., the solid 

 eastern wall which terminates the nave and separates it from the 

 chancel. 1 must confess tliat when I entered Stockton Clnirch for 

 the first time, and saw this curious structure (for which I was 

 wholly unprepared), my feeling was one of profound astonishment. 

 There, to my amazement, in an obscure little Wiltshire village, I 

 found the essential and distinctive feature of an Eastern Church, 

 the only points of difference between the solid screen at Stockton 

 and the Iconostasis in Oriental Churches Ijeing, that one is con- 

 structed of stone, with no trace of fresco or ornamentation, while 

 the others (in the present day, at any rate) are made of wood, and 

 VOL. XXXIV. — NO. cm. 15 



