210 EVOLUTION OF THE COUNTRY CHURCHES. 



The next detail which would naturally strike an observer 

 would be the Windows. These, as I have already pointed out, 

 were square-headed and not wide, that is the windows along 

 the side walls. The sizes were not large and no doubt the 

 churches were dark, but the dim religious light suited the 

 worship of the time, but as the congregation at worship of 

 the Reformation made larger and larger strides towards 

 Congregational worship, as we now know it, it was soon 

 found that the windows were not sufficiently large. Various 

 expedients were tried. Sometimes the windows were taken 

 out bodily and replaced by windows, complete with new arches, 

 jambs and cills. Specimens of this are to be found in almost 

 every church. At St. Saviour's they bear the date 1777 and at 

 the Catel 1750 and 1762, and probably the latter end of the 

 18th century was when this alteration in most of the churches 

 was made. 



Another method of obtaining most light was to simply 

 take out the flat stone which formed the head and replace it by 

 an arched head ; and as this was obviously a much cheaper 

 alteration, only one stone being disturbed and very little of the 

 wall, recourse was often had to it. This can be seen in a good 

 many churches — notably the Forest Church and St. Peter's-in- 

 the-Wood, where a brand new arch is now to be seen over 

 a pair of old jambs and sill. At the Forest Church is 

 to be seen an old square head with remains of sunk tracery on it 

 which has obviously been cut out to give a higher top to tha 

 window. It is clearly older than the window itself, but 

 equally clearly has replaced a plain flat lintel. 



The ultimate use of these discarded lintels is quite inte- 

 resting. You may have often in the course of a wander round 

 the farms in the country or even in the neighbourhood of the 

 town, observed doorways and windows with heads, moulded, 

 chamfered or shaped, which you can see were never meant ori- 

 ginally for the place they now occupy. A well-known example 

 is the Ogee lintel over the doorway of one of the old 

 houses on the left of the road leading to Saints' Bay from 

 St. Martin's Church. I can also think of one at the Croute 

 Havilland, Hubits, also at St. Saviour's. I always put the pre- 

 sence of these exotic lintels down to the alterations and 

 enlargements of the windows of our country churches at the 

 end of the eighteenth century. One can hardly imagine a 

 thrifty Guernsey countryman neglecting the chance of using 

 a lintel which he could work into his new house and which, 

 probably, he could have for the asking. It would be interesting 

 if a thorough search could be made of these lintels, and it 

 would be not improbable that the window from which they 

 came could be identified by the size and the character of the 

 moulding on it. 



