ON THE PERPENDICULAR OF SOMERSET. 63 
certainly point to a localism of some kind, when they are 
set against the fact that among the countless spires which 
I have seen in Northamptonshire and Leicestershire I have 
only met with one similar instance. This is at Naseby, 
and the local tradition is that it was mutilated at the time 
of the battle. In the other cases it would require local 
information in each case to discover whether the spire was 
left unfinished, or has been subsequently destroyed. I 
believe St. Mary Redcliffe is generally attributed to the 
former cause, and Yatton to the latter. Inany case it is 
remarkable, especially when compared with Northampton- 
shire, where, as far as I haye gone, an unfinished spire is 
unknown; and, in the numerous cases where a spire has 
been destroyed, the work, with the single exception above 
mentioned, seems to have been done much more effectually. 
In the case of Redcliffe, I cannot help thinking that, if the 
builders intentionally left it unfinished, they knew very 
well when to leave off. In all designs and models for its 
completion, the spire looks awfully too high for the tower 
on which it stands, while in its present mutilated state it 
presents a slight approximation to the noblest finish of all, 
the glorious crown of Fotheringhay and St. Ouen’s. 
