PROCEEDINGS COTTESWOLD CLUB 



1914 



EXCURSION TO CIRENCESTER. 

 Saturday, June 20th, 1914. 

 Directors : E. C. Sewell and W. St. Clair Baddeley. 

 (Report by W. Thompson & E. D. Sewell.) 



Those present at this Excursion were : Professor J. R. Ainsworth-Davis 

 (President), Mr L. Richardson (Hon. Secretary), Dr. R. Cunningham-Affleck, 

 Dr. J. H. Garrett, Messrs St. Clair Baddeley, Prof. Blundell, W. Bellows, 

 Christopher Bowly, F. H. Bretherton, O. A. Brown, H. W. Bruton. Collett, 

 G. M. Currie. J. M. Dixon, T. S. Ellis, R. G. Foster, C. I. Gardiner, C. O. 

 Hanson, E. Hartland, Professor Kinch, E. Lawrence, E. P. Little, W. Marget- 

 son, H. E. Norris, John Sawyer, E. C. Sewell, A. E. Smith, G. H. Pavey- 

 Smith, A. W. Stanton, J. H. Thomas, W. Thompson, etc. 



Meeting outside the King's Head Hotel, the party, led by Mr Sewell, 

 crossed the Market Place to the fine old Church. Comfortably seated in the 

 nave (fig. i), the Members listened to a short but illuminating address on the 



Fig. I. — Nave of the Parish Church, Cirencester, i 



main historical and architectural features of the building (Plate XXII.) A 

 Saxon Church, said Mr Sewell, stood somewhere on the east side, and that was 

 succeeded by a Norman Church, with massive round pillars similar to those at 

 Gloucester and Tewkesbury. Later an Early English roof was placed on 

 the Norman pillars, and in the fifteenth century the Church was practically 

 rebuilt. Then it was that the perpendicular tower and tall graceful shafting 

 for sustaining the roof came into existence, and the speaker reminded his 

 hearers that the heavy outlay was borne by the wealthy wool-staplers of the 

 district. It was claimed that no other church in Gloucestershire surpassed 

 that of Cirencester in symmetry and beauty, and attention was drawn to the 

 clerestory extending round the whole of the building, this being a testimony 



I The Club is indebted to the Cirencester Tradesmen's Associ-ition for the Blocks \ised for 

 Plate XXII. and figs, i, 2, 3 and 4. 



