By C. H. Talbot. 



335 



he original arches. At what exact time that was done I am not 

 ible to say, but it was most unsightly, and the replacement of those 

 .ost pillars and arches, in 1878, was the only part of the work, then 

 carried out, to which the term " restoration " can properly be applied. 

 The Church had a Norman nave, which still remains, and there is 

 mdence that it was lengthened, at the west end, by one bay, in the 

 Gorman period. There was a central tower, and I am under the 

 Impression that originally the Church may have been, as in many 

 :>ther cases, without transepts, as I remember an internal string- 

 ' 30urse, probably Norman, which appeared to have been cut through 

 ;or the insertion of the transept arches. The latter and, I think, 

 jilso the west tower arch were pointed arches, transitional 1 between 

 Norman and Early English. The arch, opening into the chancel, 

 jwas of the fifteenth century, panelled but not similar to the present 

 Chancel arch. 



Above the roof, the lower stage of the tower was Early English, 

 with single lancet windows on the sides. A photograph, in my 

 possession, shows that the lancet window, on the west side, was out 

 jof the centre, in order to avoid the nave roof, and that proves that 

 !the nave had, in the thirteenth century, a roof of much the same 

 height as in the fifteenth. Above this Early English stage was a 

 •belfry story of the fifteenth century, with two-light windows, 

 jhaving tracery of flowing lines, and bold stone waterspouts under 

 'the parapet, similar to those on the porch. This again was sur- 

 i mounted by a nondescript erection, with a battlement and pinnacles, 

 set back a little, which was probably erected when the spire was 

 removed, for a spire formerly existed and was remembered 2 by the 

 late Sir John Awdry. 



A small circular clerestory window, on the south side of the nave, 



was discovered, during the "restoration," and opened out. Its 



1 ■ 



j 1 It would perhaps be more correct to say that they were Early English, 

 ] retaining some Norman character, in the caps. 



2 In his address, as President of the Society at Chippenham, 1869, Sir John 

 \ Awdry said {Wilts Arch. Mag., vol. xii., p. 139) : — "From thence [Lacock] 

 ' they would go to Corsham, where they would see a church which when he was 



a boy had a high spire." It is stated in the Church Rambler, vol. ii., p, 492, 



that " the spire was taken down in 1812." 



