15 
Some Notes on an Old Building at Witham. By WaAu.uace GILL. 
(Read December r&th, rgor.) 
At Witham, near Frome, about fifty yards to the south-east of 
this Church is an old building of the fourteenth century, which has 
_ been considered by some antiquaries to be the ‘“ Hospitium,” or 
‘Guest House of the Carthusian Monastery, founded at Witham 
about the year 1173. 
This building, which belongs to the Duke of Somerset, is about 
36 feet long and rg feet wide, having an angle buttress at each 
‘comer, the walls being about 3 feet thick. 
I have recently superintended some alterations to this building 
in order to convert it into a Parish Room ; and on clearing out a 
lot of modern cross walls and floors we found that this building 
was one large room, and that the whole of the walls had been 
originally lined with pigeon cots, formed in the main structure of 
the building, not added subsequently. 
Clearly this building was a large ‘“ Columbarium,” or pigeon 
house. 
The place had been very much pulled about several times 
during the last two hundred years, and no traces could be found 
of the original doors or of any windows. All the original work we 
found has been carefully preserved, bu the west wall was in such 
a dilapidated state that we had io rebuild it. Probably the 
original doorway was in this west wall. 
We were obliged to form new doors and windows, and these we 
managed to put in without disturbing any original work. 
I consider that there were probably about a thousand pigeon 
holes in the building as first constructed. 
The original floor was some four feet or more below the present 
floor, and the roof was about three feet below the present roof ; 
traces of the line of this old roof can still be seen. 
All the existing pigeon holes were found walled up and plastered 
over; this was probably done a century or so ago when the 
place was turned into two cottages. 
