PERPENDICULAR TOWERS OF SOMERSET. 55 



It is to tliis period that we owe such bulldings as 

 Wells, Lincoln, and Sallsbury. Still, however, though 

 during the prevalence of thls style, tlie frame-work and 

 lateral continuity of the towers may perhaps with truth 

 be considered quite equal to those of the fourteenth Cen- 

 tury, the princlple of spire-growth had not as yet 

 attalned its complete development. There are, I believe, 

 not more than three or four instances of Early English 

 diao-onal buttresses in existence ; and the effect of the 

 buttresses being placed at right angles to the walls of a 

 complete steeple is, J;hat either the lines of the spire, if 

 continued to the ground, fall outside the bases of the 

 buttresses, causing an apparent want of stability in the 

 whole fabric, and at the same time rendering the tower 

 and spire independent of each other; or, when this is 

 avoided, the depth of the buttresses is so much increased 

 as to appear exaggerated, and out of proportion to the 

 rest of the building ; or eise the spu-e is so much dimin- 

 ished in bulk, as to appear mean and insignificant. 



But during the next centiu-y this error was corrected, by 

 placing the buttresses diagonally at the angles of the 

 tower, by that means suggesting an octagunal base, within 

 which the whole tower Stands, and from which the spire 

 rises naturally in the form of a slender octagonal pyramid ; 

 and whatever means may be adopted torelieve the junction 

 of the Square tower with the octagonal spire, — whether a 

 simple parapet, Clusters of pinnacles, or a piain broach, — the 

 effect of complete frame-work, unbroken lateral continuity, 

 and good spire growth combined, is such that tower and 

 spire together form a whole, rising naturally from a 

 sufficient base, essentially connected in all its parts, and 

 bearing throughout undoubted evidence of unity of design. 

 Of the five Perpendicular towers, in the accompanying 



