Recent Wiltshire Books, Pamphlets, and Articles. 103 



as two) — of which about 435 pages contain the "Wiltshire portion. 

 The introductory chapters at the beginning comprise History ; 

 Physical Features ; Geology, Description, Communications, Industrial 

 Eesources ; Antiquities, British and Roman ; Architecture ; Places of 

 Interest; and Cycling Eoutes. Of these the " History " is a sufficient 

 sketch ; " Physical Features and Geology j,', as good as the limits 

 of space will allow ; " Antiquities," rather scrappy and inadequate ; 

 and "Architecture and Churches" still more so. Acton Turville is 

 mentioned as a Wiltshire Church — Marlborough St. Peter's Chancel is 

 Early English, and Britford and " North Barcombe " (? Burcombe) are the 

 only examples cited of Saxon work in the county ! In the body of the 

 work, the antiquities are on the whole, however, fairly treated— the 

 account of Wansdyke and Bokerley is up to date (the editor especially 

 takes credit for having studied General Pitt-Rivers' account of his ex- 

 cavations), Stonehenge, Silbury, and Avebury are adequately dwelt upon, 

 and the various camps and barrows are as a rule mentioned. But in the 

 matter of architecture it is very different— setting aside half-a-dozen of 

 the larger Churches there is hardly an attempt made to describe the 

 ordinary run of village Churches. Church after Church is dismissed in a 

 couple of lines. Many are not even mentioned at all. Lyddington, 

 Ogbourne St. Andrew, Tockenham, Lyneham, Stanton Fitzwarren, 

 Latton, Inglesham, Hankerton, Garsdon, Maddington, and a number of 

 others are thus entirely ignored. Indeed almost the only village Church 

 which is well described in the whole county is Lacock, just as the account 

 of Lacock Abbey is more worthy of its subject than that of almost any 

 other building. Surely it is not too much to expect of Mr. Murray's 

 Handbooks, aspiring as they do to a position that no other handbooks fill, 

 that they shall at least point out to educated people the chief facts as to 

 the architecture of the Church, which in eight villages out of ten is the 

 building that the tourist naturally turns to first. And yet the editor of 

 this new edition of the handbook, which is to suffice tourists in Wiltshire 

 for the next ten years, perhaps, appears to have been entirely ignorant of 

 the fact that Mr. Ponting has most carefully and accurately described a 

 large number of the Churches of the county in the pages of the Magazine, 

 and no one with the slightest knowledge of the county can read the book 

 through without finding very numerous instances in which a very little 

 care or enquiry might have prevented information which is either actually 

 misleading or altogether out of date reappearing in this new edition. For 

 instance, the wall painting mentioned as existing in Wootton Bassett Church 

 has certainly not existed within the last twenty years. Marlborough 

 College Chapel is spoken of as having been built in 1848 ! The editor 

 seems never to have heard of the magnificent new building. Chapel 

 Plaister, near Box, has now been rescued from desecration for some years, 

 but it is still desecrated in the handbook. Salisbury Cathedral occupies 

 a considerable space, but the Chapter-House sculptures are still ■'' re- 

 splendent in all the glories of polychrome" — " glories " which as a matter 

 of fact happily departed from them some time ago — whilst the fact of 

 .£15,000 having been lately spent to save the spire irom destruction is 



