BOOK OF DOVECOTES 



to "keepe forth the Piggens from Fowleinge 

 the church." The door seems to have failed in 

 its duty, for five years later a net is bought for 

 the same purpose. This apparently succeeded 

 no better, and finally, in 1688, the drastic step 

 was taken of expending twopence on "shottand 

 powder" to exterminate the birds. 



Though it seems certain that Sarnesfield 

 church tower wasoriginally built insuch fashion 

 as to include its utility as a dovecote, later ar- 

 rangements were in some cases made to the 

 same end. At Elkstone, near Cheltenham, a 

 chamber over the chancel shows clear traces 

 of having been so adapted, the forty odd nest- 

 ing-places now seen being evidently a late ad- 

 dition. The birds flew in and out by way of an 

 unglazed lancet window. 



A like case existed at the church of St. Peter, 

 Marlborough, where the dovecote, a chamber 

 over the chancel, had agroined stone roof. H ere 

 pigeons nested until towards the middle of the 

 nineteenth century. To the same recent period 

 extended the custom of allowing pigeons the 

 use of a room above the vaulting of the church 

 at Overbury, Worcestershire. Four centuries 

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