42 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



Bearing in mind the origin of the building it may be 

 well for one moment to digress, and consider its position 

 and the locality in which it is situated, and the exigencies 

 to which it was likely to have been subject owing to that 

 position, as such a course may enable us the better to 

 appreciate some of the earlier changes in the structure. 



This particular view of the subject was ably dealt with 

 by the late Mr Gambier Parry in a description he gave of 

 the building on the occasion of a visit paid to it by the 

 Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, Sep- 

 tember 30th. 1885, an account of which is given in their 

 volume of Transactions for 1885-1886. Mr Gambier Parry 

 pointed out that Dymock was situated in the heart of the 

 country, where much disturbance took place between the 

 inhabitants of England and Wales, before the two countries 

 were united — that the position of the Church, and its 

 surroundings, is such as to have made it a vantage ground 

 for defence, and that much of the land about here is said to 

 have been held by Norman Barons, the chief of whom (in 

 the reign of Henry III, 1216-1272) was Humphry de 

 Bohun, to whom the Manor of Dymock appears to have 

 belonged, through his wife. 



It is evident from the condition of the walls that the 

 Church had fallen into a more or less ruinous condition 

 previously to the 14th. century, and subsequent works were 

 for the most part carried out at this period, very possibly, 

 as Mr Gambier Parry points out, by the owners of the 

 Manor. 



Be that as it may, we have before us a Norman Church 

 which within a comparatively short time after its erection 

 seems to have needed extensive repairs, and, looking to the 

 solid and substantial way in which Churches at this period 

 were constructed, we may perhaps assume that the 

 dilapidation would not necessarily have been occasioned 

 by neglect or lapse of time, but might also be due in part 

 to the causes already suggested : that the repairs and 



