10 PAPERS, ETC. 



with its oriel and bold staircase-turret, has rather a 

 collegiate than a monastic look. Its general character and 

 its Position with regard to the other Buildings reminded me 

 much more of several gateways in Oxford than of any other 

 conventual gateway I recoUect. There are also scattered 

 about the village streets several other houses, with oriels 

 and the like, which seem to date from tolerable Perpen- 

 dicular times. 



We next come to the church of Stoke Hambdon, that 

 teniple of stränge destinies, which, as local tradition asserts, 

 "was bullt ybr the Koman Catholics, but was never occu- 

 pied by them." The points of ecclesiastical history involved 

 in this curious statement, I shall leave others to decide ; I 

 shall content myself with attempting to fix the age of the 

 erection of its several parts, without striving to discover 

 how far the authors of each of them held that the Bishop of 

 Rome had or had not any Jurisdiction in this realm of 

 England. The original church was Norman, and probably 

 consisted of a nave and chancel only; of this fabric we 

 find remains of the north and south doorways, and also the 

 extreraely fine chancel arch. This last is profusely en- 

 riched, and there is a peculiarity in its soffit, to which is 

 attached a heavy roll, running continuously round, with 

 only a small band ranging with the neckmoulding of the 

 shafts. The Early English period rebuilt or remodelled 

 the chancel and added transepts. The northern one, as I 

 mentioned in my last year's paper, forms the tower. It is 

 a piain, bold, massive structure, with a belfry stage of ex- 

 quisite masonry, with two lancets in each face. Within it 

 exhibits a fine specimen of vaulting, rising from shafts with 

 floriated capitals and octagonal abacl. The south transept 

 is later, approaching the Decorated style; it has a noble 

 ränge of trefoil lancets on each side, and slmilar ones occur 



