CHAPTER THREE 



THE ENGLISH^ 



DOVECOTE 



Before going on to the main purpose of this 

 book, the description, namely, of a few of the 

 most interesting dovecotes still surviving in 

 England, Wales, and Scotland, it will be well 

 to spend a page or two in treating of them as 

 a whole. It may be asked, for- instance, why 

 these buildings, formerly so common, have in 

 many cases disappeared; why those still stand- 

 ing are, with some exceptions, silent and un- 

 tenanted, or turned to uses other than the 

 purpose which their builders had in view. If 

 they were needed in old days, then why not 

 now? 



Itwill be neither jest nor paradoxto saythat 

 dovecotes were in a great measure doomed 

 when first the turnip and the swede were in- 

 troduced to British agriculture, early in the 

 eighteenth century. For these useful veget- 

 ables, with assistance later from oil-cake and 

 other feeding-stuffs, solved a problem which 

 had long baffled the British farmer; that of 

 maintaining sheep and cattle through the win- 



D 33 



