By C. H. Talbot. 335 



the original arches. At what exact time that was done I am not 

 able to say, but it was most unsightly, and the replacement of those 

 lost pillars and arches, in 1878, was the only part of the work, then 

 carried out, to which the term " restoration " can properly be applied. 

 The Church had a Norman nave, which stiU remains, and there is 

 evidence that it was lengthened, at the west end, by one bay, in the 

 Norman period. There was a central tower, and I am under the 

 impression that originally the Church may have been, as in many 

 other cases, without transepts, as I remember an internal string- 

 course, probably Norman, which appeared to have been cut tlu'ough 

 for the insertion of the transept arches. The latter and, I think, 

 also the west tower arch were pointed arches, transitional ^ between 

 Norman and Early English. The arch, opening into the chancel, 

 was of the fifteenth century, panelled but not similar to the present 

 chancel arch. 



Above the roof, the lower stage of the tower was Early English, 

 with single lancet windows on the sides. A photograph, in my 

 possession, shows that the lancet window, on the west side, was out 

 of the centre, in order to avoid the nave roof, and that proves that 

 the nave had, in the thirteenth century, a roof of much the same 

 height as in the fifteenth. Above this Early English stage was a 

 belfiy story of the fifteenth century, with two-light windows, 

 having tracery of flowing lines, and bold stone waterspouts imder 

 the parapet, similar to those on the j)orch. This again was sm'- 

 mounted by a nondescript erection, with a battlement and pinnacles, 

 set back a little, which was probably erected when the spire was 

 removed, for a spire formerly existed and was remembered - by the 

 late Sir John Awdry. 



A small circular clerestory window, on the south side of the nave, 

 was discovered, during the "restoration," and opened out. Its 



' It would perhaps be more correct to say that they were Early English, 

 retaining some Norman character, in the caps. 



^ In his address, as President of the Society at Chippenham, 1869, Sir John 

 Awdry said ( Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xii., p. 139) : — " From thence [Lacock] 

 they would go to Corsham, where they would see a church which when he was 

 a boy had a high spire." It is stated in the Church Rambler, vol. ii., p. 492, 

 that " the spire was taken down in 1812." 



