By John Beddoe, M.D., LL.D., F.R.S. 361 



Earl's Barton tower might not have been built a century and a 

 half before its probably actual date. 



Another consideration occurs to me with respect to the north 

 porch of Bradford-on-Avon. The rudeness of some of its details 

 used to make me think that it was the oldest portion of the building. 

 There is an absence of arcading and of multiple pilastering, and 

 the arches of both door and window are of extreme rudeness, giving 

 one the impression that they must have been the first ever con- 

 structed by a man accustomed to build only, in Saxon fashion, in 

 wood or in " wattle-and-daub," but whom Aldhelm, according to 

 tradition a good judge of stone, had set to unaccustomed mason- 

 work. Aldhelm, however, probably began his little Church in the 

 usual way, from the chancel and the nave, to the porches ; and 

 my present conjecture is that the north porch was added after 

 Aldhelm's death or departure, under the supervision of an inferior 

 architect, whose powers blind arcading and reeded pilaster- work 

 transcended. But we must not forget that though Bivoira peremp- 

 torily dismisses the notion that the arcades were carven out of a 

 pre-existing wall, some good architects have been of that opinion. 



With much deference, I incline to think that Rivoira has a little 

 bias in the direction of ascribing too late dates to possibly early 

 buildings. Thus he puts Bepton Church in the tenth or eleventh 

 century ; though, as Bepton ceased to be a royal Mercian residence 

 with the downfall of that kingdom in the ninth century, it is 

 rather unlikely that much Church-building went on there sub- 

 sequently. And he puts the angelic figures at Bradford-on-Avon 

 into the twelfth century, though Mr. Baldwin Brown and others 

 lay stress on their very close resemblance to some figures in the 

 Beuedictional of St. Ethelwold, a book of the tenth century, and 

 date the building about that time, simply or partly because of that 

 resemblance. 



A point distinctly in favour of an early date for the Church is 

 the absence of long-and-short corner-work, which was so prevalent 

 in the later Anglo-Saxon period. 



There is a Church at St. Die, in the Vosges (where Amerigo 

 Vespucci sojourned awhile), which wonderfully resembles ours, and 



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