10 PAPERS, ETC. 
two smaller ones. This tower is not very remarkable 
either for size or enrichment, but it is conspicuous for a 
certain delicacy both of design and execution. The rest 
of the church is of flint, but the tower is a beautiful piece 
of ashlar masonry. It has double buttresses, with a stair- 
case-turret worked in between them, in a way which I do 
not remember in Somerset, but which, in various forms, is 
common in the Decorated towers of West Norfolk. The 
tower has a tall belfry-stage, a pierced battlement and 
pinnacles; but these do not rise from the buttresses, 
which finish in a singular way against the battlements. 
I cannot think this fine tower improved by a small 
bulbous spire which rises from its centre, though it struck 
me as being ancient. 
I could not easily find a greater contrast to Swaffham 
than the western tower of Wymondham. This I imagine 
to be the most thoroughly typical example of a great 
Norfolk tower that I have yet mentioned, and certainly 
nothing can be conceived more opposite to anything to 
which we are used in Somerset. Its dimensions, both as 
to height and bulk, are enormous, and its material and 
treatment, being built of flint with very little ornament, 
unite with its size to produce an effect of bold and 
rugged majesty quite opposed to the elaborate finish of 
our western towers. As instead of “crutches” it has 
turrets at the angles, Mr. Ruskin would, I presume, extend 
to it at least some measure of pity ; while Swaffham is 
but “a babe held up in its nurses arms,” Wymondham at 
least “stands like a stern sentinel” Whether however 
its finish ever presented the requisite characteristics of 
“nobility”; whether it had “ wrathful erest” or “rent 
battlements,” I know not; nor can I venture to guess 
whether it kept its “vizor up,” or whether “dark vigi- 
