ST. john's church, glastonbury. 15 



will not be surprised at such an arrangement. At 

 Somerton again, with a tower close to the south-west 

 angle of the chancel, there are on the north siele very 

 curious inequalities in the breadths of the arches, makirig 

 it very doubtful whetber the north transept is original. 



The following are extracts from Communications on the 

 subjeet, which I have reeeived from Mr. C. E. Giles : 



" I passed through Glastonbury in May, and saw the 

 excavations for a very few minutes, and took the enclosed 

 rough memoranda ; and having no time to spare, I reluct- 

 antly left them without further notice, and I now feel that 

 it is a subjeet for regret that they were not carefully 

 examined. I have for some time past been firmly con- 

 vinced that many of our larger Somersetshire churches, 

 which have been altered in the 15th Century by the 

 additions of clerestory and western tower, (often by 

 entirely new naves) were previously erueiform with central 

 tower. St. Cuthbert's was, and I told the churchwardens 

 at Glastonbury that I believed St. John's to have been. 

 The piers lately discovered have proved that such was the 

 case. The general plan of procedure seems to have been 

 to build the nave and western tower against the central 

 tower, and then pull down the latter, and then to manage 

 the space oecupied by the central tower as well as they 

 could. Sometimes this necessitated two arches smaller 

 than the other new ones to finish the arcades eastwards ; 

 sometimes one arch wider ; examples of both treatments 

 exist. And it will often be found that the corbel head 

 supporting the roof prineipal, formerly next and adjacent 

 to the west wall of the original tower, faces westwards, 

 shewing that, having been built partly against the tower 

 wall, it was not altered after the removal of the tower. 

 Such a corbel exists at Glastonbury, immediatcly over the 



