20 Amesbury Church. Reasom for thinking that it 



22d. " : also, for two days work, putting the stables in order for the 

 reception of the Earl's great horses, 2s. 2 d - ; and for carrying six 

 loads of hay to the stables, 2s." 



Mr. Thynne, the Earl's secretary, is incidentally mentioned, 

 afterwards, as Sir John Thynne, so well known as the builder of 

 Longleat. Probably these papers, relating to the Amesbury 

 demolitions, remained in his custody, and that is how they come to 

 be now at Longleat. 



Mr. Butterfield's alterations of Amesbury Church, in 1852 and 

 1853, have not only destroyed a great deal of its interest, but also 

 deprived us of evidence that we particularly wanted by obliterating 

 part of its architectural history. He removed the Perpendicular 

 east window from the chancel, preserving only the terminals of its 

 hood moulding, which now serve as supports to the credence table. 

 These bear the initials D.K.D. 1 on shields, filled in with coloured 

 material. I have not heard any suggested identification of the 

 above cyphers. He placed a new roof on the chancel, which may 

 perhaps have been necessary, but, as a consequence, we are unable 

 to form an opinion as to what was the character of the former roof 

 that Mr. Kemm describes. 2 He altered the west end of the nave, 



1 These are two angels much weathered (showing that they were external 

 corbels), carrying shields on which the letters and bands are incised and filled 

 in with black and red composition. Mr. Kemm (page 14) gives the letters 

 circumstantially but inaccurately as J. D. and K. D., and he says the corbels 

 " are figured in the 2nd volume of the ' Journal of the Archaeological Institute,' 

 p. 194, in a communication from the late Eev. Wm. Grey." It seems extra- 

 ordinary that Mr. Kemm should have made such a mistake about these letters, 

 but he appears to have repeated a statement made by Mr. Grey, without 

 thinking it necessary to verify such statement, and Mr. Grey may have 

 mistaken the letters, when in their original situation, if he read them from 

 the ground. Canon Jackson also refers to the drawings in the Journal of the 

 Institute, giving the letters on the shields as I. ~D. and K. D. (Wilts Arch. 

 Mag., vol. x., p. 84.) The real cypher, D.K.D., might be that of a man and 

 his wife, the initial of the surname being K. and that of the Christian name 

 of each, D. The work need not really be earlier than the time of Henry VIII. 



2 He says (page 12): — "The chancel roof too, which gave place to the 

 present one when the Church was restored, was not at all equal to that which 

 still covers the nave ; though it was of the same pitch, it was less ornamented, 

 and its carving did not entirely match, thereby indicating that it was made 

 up of old materials." 



Sir Kichard Hoare says : — " The ceilings, both of nave and choir, are of oak 



