By C. E. Pouting, F.S.A. 



187 



The Church of S. Mary, Castle Eaton. 



In a paper which I wrote some twelve years ago, on the Churches 

 of Purton and Wanborough, 1 I alluded to the widely-prevailing 

 supposition that there were only three Parish Churches in England 

 possessing a tower and a spire at separate points of the building — these 

 being the two forming the subject of that paper and Ormskirk, in 

 Lancashire. The doubt I then expressed as to the number of such 

 Churches being thus limited has been strengthened by subsequent 

 experience, and here is an instance where, although the spire is 

 less developed than in either of the cases previously named — is, in 

 fact, a mere turret spirelet — the cause which led to the two features 

 was probably the same, viz., the necessity for further space for bells 

 as the number increased, when, instead of the sanctus bell only, a 

 peal of bells was required. There are several instances in Wiltshire, 

 or just outside its borders, of the stone turret remaining on either 

 the east or west ends of the nave, but where no second bell-tower has 

 been erected, e.g., Biddestone S. Nicholas, Corston, Great Chalfield, 

 Acton Turville. There were two others which have been removed 

 in recent years — one at Biddestone S. Peter, which was re-erected 

 in the grounds of the Manor House at Castle Combe, and another 

 at Leigh Delamere, re-erected over the schools on the demolition of 

 the old Church in 1846. There are traces of another east end 

 turret at "Woolstone, Berks. 



In confirmation of the theory that " low-side- windows " were 

 used for the sanctus bell (a hand-bell used inside the Church) , it 

 may be mentioned that there is no such window in either of these 

 Churches which still exist, where, as the turrets are coeval with the 

 earlier parts of the buildings, there was no necessit}^ for the more 

 primitive provision for the use of the sanctus. Neither is there a 

 low window at Ufnngton, where also the necessity for it did not 

 exist, there being an early central tower, where there are existing 

 proofs that the sanctus bell was hung. 



1 Wilts Arch. Mag., xxiii., p. 229, 



n 2 



