1 68 ARCHITECTURAL STYLES IN FORDINGTON CHURCH. 



Pieces of old plastering were also picked up, with lines of 

 vermilion arid grey drawn upon them. 



I have thought it well to give the foregoing evidence which 

 has been disclosed by the work that has been done at the 

 church, and which, I think it must be agreed, could not have 

 been ascertained otherwise, and on part of which one's theories 

 for the architectural sequence or evolution must be based. I 

 will endeavour, as far as practicable, to confine myself to that 

 evidence in conjunction with all that is patent to the ordinary 

 observer of what is still in existence and use. 



The site of this church is on a knoll or hill, commanding fine 

 views of the surrounding country in every direction. 



The village or parish was known at the date of the Norman 

 Conquest by the ancient name of Fortitone.* 



There seems to be little doubt that there has been an erection 

 or structure of some kind upon this site from time immemorial. 



It is quite within the limits of human reasoning to conjecture 

 in remote times the site being occupied by a Druidical mono- 

 lithic or wattle-and-mud erection, the pagan priests officiating, 

 having as their metropolitan the heathen Archflamen of the City of 

 Carleon or London ; and further, by the way, it is believed that the 

 revenues of these pagan priests, when the land was cleared of 

 heathenism, eventually passed into the hands of, and were trans- 

 ferred to, the Christian bishops and clergy of those early centuries. 

 This may or may not have been the origin of the Great Tithes, 

 which are said to have been lost in the mists of antiquity. 



Coming to Romano-British times, we get the first traces of 

 evidence of Roman practice, viz., in the herringbone masonry 

 in the foundation under the arch of the old north transept. 

 This, although it occurs in Norman and occasionally in Saxon 

 work, may have supported a Romano-British edifice, a temple 



* Fortitone was, in all probability, the result of an attempt on the part of the 

 Isormau compiler of Domesday to put down the English word "Fordingtoii." 

 Many such clumsy spellings occur in the Survey e.y., Pirctone for Piddleton ; 

 irichcmetHHe for Wichampton. [En.] 





