THE 



WILTS HIRE MAGAZ INE. 



"MULT0RUM MANIBUS GRANDE LEVATUE ONUS." — Ovid. 



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By the Rev. J. Babon, D.D., F.S.A., 



Rector of Upton Scudamore, Wilts. 



%THE very name of restoration is a sound of alarm to the 

 grj antiquary, as being often another word for meddlesome 

 change, fanciful improvement, or even reckless and ruthless destruc- 

 tion. Nevertheless, even destructions and demolitions are sometimes 

 imperatively demanded by altered circumstances and true progress, 

 and some restorations are necessary, and, if carried out in a con- 

 servative spirit, praiseworthy, while to many we owe the revelation 

 or illustration of interesting features which would otherwise have 

 remained hidden or unobserved. Among necessary conservative 

 and instructive restorations I trust may be reckoned that of the 

 parish Church of the little secluded village of Stockton, Wilts, 

 completed in 1880. 



The first feature to be noted is what has been called, for want of 

 a better name, a " horizontal vesica piscis," over the middle and 

 tallest of the three lancet lights of the east window. 



This is, alas, only a shadow of the past : for the window was 

 restored in 1840, but we have a trustworthy record that the new 

 window was intended to be a careful reproduction of the old one. 

 The very peculiarity of this feature nearly caused its destruction at 

 the beginning of the recent restoration of the Church. " Who ever 

 heard of such a thing as ' a horizontal vesica piscis * ? " " It could 

 not be original.'" I pointed out, in the Benedictional of St. Ethel- 

 wold, a " vesica piscis leaning to the right, 1 although usually re- 

 presented vertical in the same tenth century MS., 2 and pleaded that 



1 Archaeologia, vol. xxiv., pp. 53, 02. 

 2 Ibid, pp. 57, 80, 85, 86, 87. 

 VOL. XX. — NO. LIX. I 



