ANNTJAL EXCURSION. 29 



appears to have merged in that of the ordinary. The bishop 

 when visiting this church occupies the stall formerly the dean's. 

 The chapiter continued till the reign of Edwai'd VI. The tower 

 is believed to be of the reign of Queen Mary, and it is wonderful 

 there should be such beautiful work so late as that.® Tradition 

 said of the tlu'ee niches on each of the north and south sides of 

 the tower that there were six statues made for them, but they 

 were never allowed to be put in position. That might possibly 

 be true ; because, if the statues were made and were finished at 

 the end of Mary's reign, at the beginning of Elizabeth's, 

 circumstances having altered, they might not have been allowed 

 to be erected. The tower had been measured, and was found to 

 be 105 feet 6 inches to the top of the battlements, and 123 feet 

 to the top of the pinnacles. Shortly after this visit of our 

 Institution to Probus, the vicar of Fowey had that tower 

 re-measured, and found it 119 feet to the top of the pinnacles, 

 104 feet to the top of the battlement. Probus tower is, there- 

 fore, the highest in the county. On the north side of the tower 

 in the churchyard was pointed out the tomb of Mr. and Mrs. 

 Carveth, of Barteliver, the grandparents of the late Archbishop 

 Temple, whose birth and baptism, though he was not born in 

 England, were entered in the margin of the Probus register, 

 probably with a view to getting his name registered in some 

 English parish. On the south side was pointed out the 

 Sanctuary, the residence of the vicar. It is said that King 

 Athelstan gave rights of sanctuary, and they were continued till 

 such rights were done away with in the reign of James I. 



Everybody was struck not only with the external beauty of 

 the fabric, but with the interior. On the tower wall there exist 

 in good preservation the ro^-al arms of James II, with the 

 unicorn as supported. The carved wood screen beneath the 

 tower arch, a preservation from past wreckage of the church 

 fittings, bears a cross and ABODE. The vicar said he could 

 give no explanation of them himself, but he had been told that 

 the cross was the symbol of the tenor bell, and that, with the 



5. On Probus Tower, see Trans. Exeter Dio. Archit. Soc, vol. iv (where is a 

 good elevation) and Journal R.I.C.,' vol. ix, where Mr. H. M. Whitley gives some 

 valuable notes on the date from the Public Records. The evidence for the date 

 generally given (Q. Mary) does not seem very strong. 



