194 St. Peter's Church, Marlborough. 



of Bp. Kobert Bingham, about 1232.^ At that time one Peter was 

 rector of St. Peter's. But I have found the name of a still earlier 

 incumbent of St. Peter's, one "Thomas the Chaplain," in 1201. 

 (Seldcn Soc. Publications, i. 34.) There was again a " Thomas the 

 Chaplain " at St. Peter's, about 1272. St. Mary's was not estab- 

 lished as a vicarage until 28th June, 1238,^ previous to which it 

 was, if I am not mistaken, subject to Preshute Mother Church. 

 Mr. Pouting, I believe, dates the earlier part of the extant Church 

 of St. Mary's about 1160. St. Martin's Church, pulled down about 

 the time of Edward VI., was built in 1239 — 40, just after St. Mary's 

 was constituted a vicarage. 



How is it then than in this Church of St. Peter and St. Paul — 

 a parish at least as early as the Norman Conquest — you can see 

 from where you are sitting no trace of any building earlier than 

 the latter part of the 15th century ? 



The only answer which I can hazard is, that architects at that 

 date sometimes thought much what some architects did in the 

 time of Queen Victoria, — and perhajjs we may think that the older 

 men were the better justified in such a persuasion, — that they 

 could produce something at least as good as the work of earlier ages. 

 At all events the church here stands now in its main features, 

 that is to say, apart from any porch or vestry — much as it did in 

 point of plan and structure, walls and arches and windows, as it 

 was built a new building (presumably on the site of a Norman or 

 early church) about 1460. 



Mr. Pouting observes that our tower is much like that of Mere 

 Church, on the border of Wilts. Also he notices the presence of 

 oyster shells, which began to be introduced into the mortar for 

 some joints, about 1460. 



Mr. Thomas Henry Wyatt (1807 — 80) was employed to carry 

 out the alterations at St. Peter's, as he was at many churches in 

 Wiltshire and elsewhere. He was elder brother and instructor of 

 Sir Matthew Digby Wyatt (1820 — 77), and they were kinsmen of 

 James Wyatt (1746 — 1813), who was a facile designer of buildings 



' Hist. MSS. Commission Eeport, 8vo, 1901, i. p. 341. 

 ^ Sarum Charters, pp. 244-5. jRegistrum Hubrum, i. 30 b, n. 106. 



