326 Notes on Spye Park and Bromham, 



Baynton got some part of its estate; but it is hardly likely that he 

 would have fetched his stone such a distance. Moreover he was 

 possessor of Stanley Abbey, and could get stone from thence. When 

 Aubrey wrote scarcely any part of Stanley Abbey remained; 1 and, 

 though I have not seen it stated, it seems likely that that Abbey was, 

 at least partially, demolished by its purchaser. 



Viewing the gate-house from the high road, the archaeologist 

 must exercise a faculty which is often called upon, and imagine a 

 restoration. The first thing to be ignored is the circular stone arch 

 which has been erected, quite recently, beneath the old one, for the 

 purpose of supporting the latter which had become dangerous. This, 

 of course, interferes a good deal with the effect; but it will not do 

 so to the same extent when the stone shall have weathered, and it is 

 difficult to see what other expedient could have been adopted, as the 

 old arch is much out of shape and cracked in one part, and it would 

 have been very difficult to have rebuilt it. Restoring in imagina- 

 tion the old level of the roadway, which was lowered when the new 

 arch was inserted, it will be seen that certain features of the present 

 building are not original, but are variations introduced into the 

 design when it was rebuilt, comprising the angle buttresses, appa- 

 rently — -the ogee-headed niches on each side, and the windows in the 

 north and south walls, certainly. With these exceptions, the two 

 faces of the building seem to have been rebuilt very fairly as they 

 originally stood. Their general design is the same. The arches 

 are four-centred and very flat, a bad shape both constructionally and 

 artistically. Their spandrels however are richly carved with foliage, 

 there being a decidedly Cinque Cento and non-gothic element about 

 them. In each, a dragon or griffin supports a shield of arms. 

 Above these arches are large oriel windows, and the building is 

 finished with a battlement above. On the west side, next the high 

 road, which has been the front and is rather more ornamented than 

 the other, there are fluted shafts at the angles of the lower part 

 of the oriel terminated with slight pendants, and other such shafts 

 above, which must have been carried up as pinnacles above the 



1 Aubrey's a "Wiltshire Collections," by the Rev. Canon Jackson, p. 113. 



