BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



with haste. 



Leicester, indeed, though not without its 

 dovecotes, does not seem particularly rich in 

 them. One will be found at Houghton-on-the- 

 Hill. It is a square brick building, twenty feet 

 in length, ,by sixteen feet six inches wide; 

 gabled, and with a slated roof The very moder- 

 ate thickness of the walls prepares us for the 

 knowledge that its age does not exceed two 

 centuries, it having been erected in 1716. 

 There are about one thousand L-shaped nests. 



In a field at Aston Flamville is a square 

 brick dovecote of the early eighteenth century, 

 the date being 171 5. The length of wall is 

 eighteen feet, and the L-shaped nest-holes 

 number eight hundred. 



In Warwickshire there falls to be noticed the 

 not very common instance of accommodation 

 for pigeons being provided in a castle — the four- 

 teenth-century fortress of Maxstoke, where a 

 chamber over the gate-house has been partly 

 fitted up with nests. A reliable architectural 

 authority, by whom this castle has been recent- 

 ly described, is of opinion that the arrangement 

 was carried out some time in the sixteenth 

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