THE EVOLUTION OF THE TOWN CHURCH, 



BY S. CAREY CURTIS, 

 Associate of the Royal Institute of British Architects. 



In studying the various epochs of the building of our Town 

 Church, one is forcibly reminded that it has no written 

 history. No documents exist by which we can definitely 

 assign a date to the commencement of the Church, and it is 

 obvious to the most casual observer that the grand old Church 

 was not the work of a few years, or the care of a few 

 Architects or builders, in arriving at its present condition. 

 None of these left any date on the Avails or any written 

 particulars of the work they undertook, with the exception of 

 one date, which was found about a century ago, tradition 

 says carved on a beam of oak hidden in the wall, and of 

 which a cast in plaster may be seen over the door leading into 

 the Vestries in the South East Aisle. The inscription runs 

 " l>att:mU:ccwbem:tut:faite, M and I will show when 

 I come to that portion of the Church, that this date bears the 

 seal of authenticity. 



The lack of History, written or handed down, was not of 

 much moment in countries where the materials used did not 

 partake of the refractory nature of our Granite. At the time 

 when the greatest amount of Church building went on, the 

 period when the larger portion of the Town Church was 

 built, conditions of building were very different from now- 

 a-days. An itinerant band or guild of craftsmen, generally 

 connected with some religious community, with a head 

 craftsman, or apYLTeKToov to direct operations, used to travel 

 over the country, putting up a nave here, adding to partly 

 completed work there, or starting some new work, and every- 

 where leaving on their work some imprint of individuality in 

 the form of peculiar shaped mouldings, crockets, or other 

 mannerism, which enables us now, by studying these idiosyn- 

 crasies, to assign a definite date to any piece of work, and 

 almost to say that this Church and that were built by the same 



